Dark Redemption - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,16

long pause in conversation.

I'm tempted to fill it up with something inconsequential, some small talk, but there's another pressing issue that I want to discuss with Marguerite.

We've talked about this before.

There's a trust fund that Lincoln would have had access to if he had married the right person. I know that it still weighs heavily on her mind and the last time we talked, the conversation didn't go so well.

11

Dante

Marguerite announces that she's getting hungry and if she doesn't have something to eat quickly, she's going to start to feel nauseous. We head to the kitchen and she frantically looks around for the saltine crackers in the pantry.

"Don't you want some something more substantial?" I ask.

She shakes her head no. "I hate these things. They taste like cardboard, but it's the only thing that makes me feel better."

"Do you want me to order some food, anything like that?"

Again she shakes her head no. "Only if you want some. It's hard for me to predict what's going to make me feel sick to my stomach and what's not, so I kind of stick to this."

I decide to join her in her plate of crackers but cut up an apple and grab a vine of grapes as well.

"Wow. This almost would feel like happy hour if we had some wine," Marguerite remarks.

"I saw some in the back," I joke.

"It's strange but I've never been a big drinker, as you know. And now that I'm pregnant, alcohol is all I can think about."

"Really?" I ask.

"Yeah. I don't mean like to get drunk, just kind of crave that first sip of a cold beer. I don’t even want the whole thing, just a taste.”

I grab a cracker and chew with my mouth open, thundering inside my head.

"I wanted to talk to you about Lincoln's trust fund again.”

She tenses up. A small line forms on her forehead between her eyebrows and she clenches her jaw.

A second later, she bites into another cracker.

"Look, I know this is a tense situation but the money's there, and it would really change the situation for you two. I mean, he wouldn't have to work so hard."

"That's the thing. He still will," she says, shaking her head. "I mean, five million? Yeah, that's a lot of money, but he can't give up his career. It's not enough money to retire on forever in the city in any sort of lifestyle. But it is enough to move to some little town out in the country, get some animals, a little acreage, but that's not Lincoln.”

“What are you going to do out there?” I ask, sitting back in my chair and taking a bite of the apple.

“Maybe open a little practice.”

“You want to be a country doctor?”

She rolls her eyes. "You're not going to make fun of me about it, are you?"

"No, not at all. I just never heard you talk like that."

"Well, you know, we all have dreams. That’s what I was thinking the last time I was in the ER before they forced me to take maternity leave."

"Well, you did throw up on a patient," I point out.

"Dr. Gowalski nearly killed someone because he was hungover, but hey, we're all going to focus on me and my persistent nausea," she says, throwing her hands up. "Lincoln would never want to move somewhere like that, you know?”

“What about you?” I ask. “What if it were just up to you?”

“I think having a practice in a small town would be nice. Relaxing. Maybe I could even keep regular hours.”

"What's that like?" I ask.

She laughs along with me.

"You know, growing up, I thought all of those people who have their friends and their work and everything within a twenty-minute drive and I thought how boring? That would be awful. But now having this baby, that's all I can think about. I just want Lincoln to be with me. I guess the pregnancy I can handle on my own, but I'm a little scared about having the baby. And then after we come home ..."

I'm about to bring up hiring help again, but she beats me to it.

"Help would be useful, but it's not the same thing as raising a child with your husband, with the father. And I don't even mean forever, you know? Just a couple of years. We can connect, bond, leave the rat race."

"I couldn't agree more," I say. "That's why you should do it."

"Do what?"

"You should seriously think about taking the trust to court."

"What about your mother? She'll never