My Stepbrother Came Home for the Anniversary, and I Didn't Know Him novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: The Pantry
Kaisa's POV
The tent men were driving stakes into my parents' lawn at nine in the morning, and every blow shook the kitchen windows.
I stood at the counter with a stack of white paper tablecloths and a roll of tape, and I tried not to look out at the porch.
Matti was up on a ladder over the steps, hanging strings of white lights from the eaves.
Arvid had asked him to.
My mother had said nothing at all, which was a sound she made.
Arvid and Diane were upstairs, and I could hear her moving between the bedroom and the bathroom with the fast, short steps she used when she was upset.
She had been using them since the supper on Thursday.
I'd noticed, and I'd decided not to ask.
I taped a tablecloth to a card table with more care than it needed.
The back door opened, and Matti came in with a coil of extension cord over his shoulder.
He had sawdust on his sleeves and a smear of dust on his jaw.
"Where does Dad keep the electrical tape?" he said.
"Pantry," I said. "Second shelf, behind the Crisco."
He went in, and I heard him moving jars.
I followed, because I'd told myself I wanted to make sure he found it.
The pantry was a narrow room off the kitchen with shelves on three sides and a big galvanized flour bin under the bottom shelf.
It smelled of onions and cinnamon and the dust of fifty years of canned peaches.
Matti stood in the middle of it with a roll of tape in his hand, and the door swung shut behind me.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Stepbrother Came Home for the Anniversary, and I Didn't Know Him are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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