They Called Me Barren. They Picked the Wrong Wife novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Keep It to Yourself

"Neil tells me you've booked a specialist in Columbus," Lorraine's voice said from the wall. "Cancel it."

Bev put her hand on the counter.

"You will not ask that clinic for anything, and you will not ask anyone to look at my son. I know what he is, and I know what you are, and I've been very kind about both."

The tape hissed.

"You gave your word to keep this in the family, Margaret. A wife who keeps things is worth a great deal to me. Goodnight, dear."

The machine clicked and went quiet.

I had heard it once, in my third year, standing exactly here, and I had thought: she's bossy, and she's frightened for him.

I had cancelled the appointment that same night.

"I know what he is," Bev said. "She said it to you. In your own kitchen, on your own line."

"Yes."

I put my palm against the cold plastic.

I pulled the plug out of the wall and held the machine against my chest.

Callum's workshop was an old garage behind the feed store, with one yellow bulb and a stove.

It was the afternoon of the thirty-first, and he opened the door before I knocked.

I put the machine on his bench and said, "Can you make that play through the speakers at your mother's shop?"

He looked at it and then at me, and nothing moved in his face.

"My father put a sound system in that building when I was nineteen," he said. "I wired it. There's a jack on the amp in the back office."

"Can you do it tonight?"

"Lorraine's at the watch night service at six. She'll be there till midnight."

"Then tonight."

"Maggie."

"I'm still angry," I said. "I'm angry and I need your hands. Both are true."

"That's more than I hoped for."

At six o'clock the sky over Main Street was black, and the Rowan Tile & Floor sign was dark.

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