The Girl They Forgot to Love novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Not Yet

Anthony's POV

I did not hear from her for three days.

I did not call. I did not drive past the clinic, and I did not go near Millvale.

That was the first thing I got right, and it felt like nothing at all.

On the fourth day, a text came at noon. Come to my mother's for dinner. Saturday, six o'clock. Bring nothing.

I read it standing in my office, and I had to sit down.

Her mother lived in a four-unit brick building in Bloomfield with a green door.

I stood on the stoop at ten to six with my hands empty.

I had been told to bring nothing, and I had taken it literally.

I raised my hand to knock and put it down again.

A voice came from the open window above me.

"You can knock, you know. Nobody's going to bite you."

It was Lizzie's mother, leaning on the sill in an apron. A gray cat sat next to her elbow.

"I'm early," I said.

"You've been early for eight years. Come up."

The kitchen was small and yellow.

Lizzie stood at the stove stirring a pot, in jeans and an old sweater. She didn't turn around.

"Sit," she said. "My mother's going to ask you some things."

I sat.

Her mother put a plate of potatoes in front of me and a fork beside it.

Then she sat across from me and folded her hands.

"Lizzie tells me you parked outside her house," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"For how long?"

"Some nights, for eight years."

"Did you ever get out of the car?"

"No."

"What were you waiting for?"

"I don't know," I said. "For her to turn off the light. For me to find the nerve."

She nodded slowly.

"I parked outside this same girl's clinic for three days," she said. "I'd done it down the street from her bakery for a month before that. I was too scared to knock."

"I know. She told me."

"It's a terrible habit," her mother said.

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