He Gave Me Fifty Dollars to Live, I Left Him with Nothing novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: The Notary

The housekeeper was on the porch at six in the morning with a suitcase and a plastic bag of lemons.

"He fired me at midnight," she said. "He gave me ten minutes to pack."

"Come in," I said.

She stepped inside and looked down the hall at the closed door of Maisie's room.

"Eleven years in that house," she said. "I'm not going back to my sister's. I'll stay with the girl, if you let me."

I hugged her.

She smelled like the Carraway kitchen, like lemon oil and starch.

Then she pulled a folded paper from her coat.

"The assistant who brought you those forms in the second year," she said. "He carried them out afterward himself. He drove them to a notary above the pharmacy on Thames Street. I drove him once, when his car was in the shop."

Tobias was already pulling on his coat.

The notary's office was one room with a desk, a stamp and a framed license.

The woman behind the desk was sixty, gray, and neat as a pin.

I put the decree down in front of her.

"Is that your seal?"

"I notarize forty things a week."

"Did you watch me sign it?"

She looked at the page.

She did not look at me.

"Mrs. Carraway, I'm sure I followed the rules."

"Check your log," Tobias said. "Please."

She opened a gray ledger and ran her finger down a column.

Her finger stopped.

"The entry says *consent of birth mother.* The line for identification is blank."

"Because I wasn't here," I said.

"I never met you."

Her voice cracked on the last word.

"Then who brought you the sheet?"

"His assistant. Every quarter he came with a folder. Signed pages, ready for a stamp. Mr. Carraway was a pillar of this town. I thought it was a courtesy for a grieving widow who couldn't leave her sick child."

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