The Boss Said My Father Drowned His Brother, So He Took Me to Stand in the Water novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: An Empty Grave

Stellan's POV

I put my mother out of my house on Sunday at ten past five, in front of the people who had eaten her bread for thirty years.

I did not shout it.

I stood at the foot of the long table with a dead man's ring lying on the white cloth, and I said, "You'll not sit at this table again, Mother."

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she rose from the oak chair with her hands flat on the carved arms, as straight as she had ever stood in that room.

"Your father put me in that chair," she said.

"Then he can have it back," I said.

Nobody helped her with her coat.

The old men from the supper club looked at their caps.

The church women looked at the floor.

She walked the whole length of the table alone, past forty chairs, and not one person stood to open the door.

I held it myself.

She stopped in front of me on the threshold, and I saw her face up close as it had been for thirty-nine years.

"I did it for you," Pirjo said. "For the name."

"Lauri is under the ice," I said. "Tauno Lahti is in a hole I paid for. The name is the only thing left."

"Stellan."

"Joel will take you to my aunt's in Two Harbors," I said. "You'll have a house and a woman to cook and what you need. You'll not have my table, my church or my brother's name in your mouth."

"And her?" Pirjo asked.

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