He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Name on the Door
The sign went up on the first Saturday in April, in a thin spring rain, and Irini held the ladder.
It was painted wood, cedar green on cream, with a heron standing in the O of INK.
DAPHNE RALLIS, INK.
Anders was on the ladder with a drill, and he had been told three times to stop singing.
"It's crooked," Irini announced.
"It is not," I said.
"The left side's down."
"It's the street," Anders said, from above.
"The street's crooked."
"Mama says it's the street," Irini told the postman, who had stopped on the pavement to look.
"I'd say it's the street," the postman agreed.
I stood on the wet sidewalk with a coffee in my hand and looked at my own name on my own door.
I had been Dara Lund for five years and some months.
I hadn't known how tired I was of her.
I felt no triumph.
I felt like a woman who has set down something heavy and has not yet learned what to do with her arms.
"Well?" Anders said, coming down the ladder.
"It's straight," I said.
"Now say the other thing."
"What other thing?" he asked.
"The thing you've been walking around the house with since Tuesday," I said.
He went red to the ears.
"Not on the sidewalk," he said.
"In front of the postman."
"Not on the sidewalk," I agreed.
"Tonight."
He had a plan for tonight, and I knew it, because Irini had told me in the bath.
Anders had asked her what her favorite color was, and she had said yellow.
I had a plan of my own for the afternoon.
I sent Irini next door at three with the neighbor's wife, her crayons, her rabbit and a plate of lemon bars.
I turned the sign on the door to CLOSED and drew the blind.
Anders was sitting in the tattoo chair in the back room with his left sleeve rolled to the elbow.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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