All Chapters of Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle: Chapter 191 - Chapter 200

Xena.The other side of the bed was empty when I woke, sheets still warm where he'd been.Went to meet Marcus's brother. Didn't want to wake you. Coffee's still hot if you get to it before ten.I read the text twice, smiling at the specificity of it, the coffee deadline, the fact that he'd already named the brother by name instead of just calling him "the contractor" the way he had last night. He'd actually gone. Not talked about going. Gone.I lay there another minute looking at the ceiling, at the crack running along one corner we still hadn't gotten around to patching. My shoulders had loosened sometime overnight without my noticing, the tightness I'd been carrying since the driveway finally letting go on its own.I made myself coffee before it went cold, sat at the folding table alone for the first time in days, and let myself have five full minutes of nothing before I picked up the phone and called Okafor."You're up early," he said, papers rustling somewhere on his end."I need

Xena. "You look like you've been somewhere I need to know about," Dante said, before I'd even gotten the door shut behind me. "Is it that obvious?" "You haven't blinked since you walked in." He set down the roll of drop-cloth tape he'd been holding and crossed the kitchen toward me, close enough now that I could smell fresh paint still drying somewhere behind him. "Sit down. Tell me." I didn't sit. I stood there with my coat still on, the same way I had in Cassandra's sitting room an hour earlier, like taking it off would mean committing to being back in this house instead of still standing in hers. "Xena." Dante came around the table, close enough now that I had to tilt my chin to keep looking at him. "Whatever it is, you can just say it. I'd rather have it plain than watch you circle it for another five minutes." "I know." "So say it."

Xena. "Weeks," Cassandra said, finishing the sentence she'd left hanging. "Not months, the way I let you believe this afternoon. The doctor gave me a range, and I've spent the last two weeks watching myself land closer to the short end of it every single day." "Cassandra." "I told you not to do that earlier, and I meant it just as much now." Her voice held steady, though I could hear the effort it took to keep it there. "I'm telling you because you need to know what you're actually planning around, not because I want you carrying it for me." "How many weeks?" "Four, if I'm being generous with myself. Possibly fewer." She said the number plainly, the same way she'd said everything else that afternoon, each word set down without a single tremor in it despite whatever it must have cost her to keep them that steady. "I didn't want you making arrangements for a woman who has all the t

Xena."Pick up. Come on, pick up," I muttered, pressing the phone so hard against my ear that the case bit into my cheek.The line rang once, then clicked over to Okafor's breathing, close and a little winded."Sorry," he said, the apology clipped short by the hour. "I walked into the kitchen and lost the signal. This building eats calls.""The date, Okafor," I said, too sharp to bother with hello."The nineteenth." He paused, his voice dropping lower. "Earliest possible. It could slide later. It won't slide earlier, if the clerk's right, and clerks are right more often than wardens."I counted on my fingers under the table without meaning to. Dante watched my hand do it."Eleven days," I whispered, my fingers still folded against my palm."Eleven days," Okafor agreed, flat and careful. "After that, Herald's three hundred miles north. Every visit becomes a full day in a car for a woman who may not have many full days left to spend that way."Dante's thumb stopped moving against my knu

Xena."You actually came," Foster said, holding the door open with one hand and a folded sheet of yellowed paper with the other. "I didn't think you would.""She asked us to," I answered quietly, stepping in out of the cold. "Before she hung up."Dante came in behind me and shut the door. Foster looked at him for a long second. Dante held still and let him look. Then Foster stepped aside to let him pass.Cassandra sat in the chair by the window, a blanket over her knees and an empty cup on the table beside her. She looked smaller than she had four days ago. Her hands were folded in her lap, but her thumbs kept moving against each other."Sit, both of you," she said, her voice worn thin. "I won't have anyone looming over me in my own house."Dante took the end of the sofa nearest the door. I sat beside him, close enough that our knees touched. Foster stayed on his feet in the middle of the rug, the paper held against his chest."You said it was a cold," he said to his mother, the words