He Let Our Baby Die Over a Hospital Bill novel · Chapter 29 of 32

Chapter 29: The Cabin

"Yes," I said, with radish in my teeth.

He drove us up on a Friday afternoon at the start of November, two and a half hours west.

The truck's heater roared, and the hula girl shook on the dash.

My phone lost its last bar halfway up the canyon.

I watched it go and felt something in my shoulders let go with it.

The cabin was at the end of a dirt road, on a lake the color of a nickel.

It was brown logs and a green tin roof and a porch with six mismatched chairs.

"Six chairs," I said.

"Four sisters. Plus my folks. Plus whoever's dating a sister."

"That's more than six."

"We stand a lot."

Inside, it smelled like woodsmoke and pine cleaner.

There was a woodstove, a long table with a bench on each side, and a room off the back with two sets of bunk beds.

He opened the fridge and stepped back so I could see.

It was full.

Every container had a strip of masking tape on the lid, in a firm, round hand.

GREEN CHILE, OCT. DO NOT GIVE TO ABE, HE'LL EAT IT ALL.

TAMALES (PORK). TAMALES (CHEESE). THE CHEESE ONES ARE FOR THE GIRL.

CAKE. ASK YOUR SISTER BEFORE YOU TOUCH THE CAKE.

At the bottom, on a sheet of paper taped to the shelf:

Welcome, Nadine. Eat everything. Make him do the dishes.

I stood there with the fridge door open and the cold coming out.

"Your mom knows my name."

"My mom knows everything. One of my sisters reads the newspaper out loud at dinner."

"She called me the girl."

"She calls everybody the girl. She calls my dad the girl."

I laughed so hard I had to close the fridge.

We ate the cheese tamales standing up at the counter.

Then, because I'd said on the drive that I'd never swum in a mountain lake, he made me do it.

"It's November," I said.

"It's tradition."

"Whose tradition?"

"Mine. Starting now."

The dock was gray and splintered and stuck straight out into the water.

We stood at the end of it in our underwear with towels around our shoulders, and the wind came across the lake.

"This is how people die," I said.

"I'm a nurse. I'll save you."

"Who saves you?"

"Nobody. That's why you go first."

I pushed him in.

He went in sideways with a sound.

He came up gasping and swearing in a way I'd never heard him swear, even in the stairwell.

I was laughing too hard to stand up.

← Chapter 28 · All chapters · Chapter 30 →

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