The Boss Said My Father Drowned His Brother, So He Took Me to Stand in the Water novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Her Mother's Bed

I said it on Saturday night at ten, from the top of the stairs.

I'd had a whole day of my own house.

I had washed my mother's curtains and swept the porch and paid the gas bill.

I had worked a half shift at the Hillside House and held a woman's hand while she asked for her sister, who was dead.

I had come home and showered, and put on my mother's old green robe, and stood at my window until the street lamp came on.

Stellan had not come to the door all day.

He had sat in his truck at the curb in the daylight, and twice I'd seen him carry a bag of salt from the bed of it and spread it on my steps.

At ten I went to the top of the stairs and called down.

"Stellan."

I heard the front door open.

I heard him come in out of the cold, and take off his boots, and stand in the hall.

"Come up," I said.

He took the stairs slowly.

He came into the light with snow in his hair and his hands open at his sides.

I stood in the bedroom door with my hand on the frame.

"This is my mother's room," I said. "It's mine now. I never changed it."

"I'll stand where you want me."

"I want you in the bed."

He looked at the quilt.

It was an old pieced thing in blues and whites, a star pattern my grandmother had sewn.

He looked at the pillow where my mother's head had lain in the months before the Hillside House.

I watched him understand what he had been let into.

"Elin," he said. "You're sure."

"I asked you up the stairs," I said.

"You're grieving."

"I know what I am," I said.

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