Mom Handed Us One Lease, So I Handed My Stepbrother My Bed novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Nochebuena
Jakob's POV
Mission San Jose has stood for three hundred years.
On Nochebuena at midnight it held everyone I love.
My father sat on my left with his bolo tie and his hymnal.
Nelda sat past him, in a red mantilla, with her rosary wound through her fingers.
Maricela sat on my right, in a black dress with her braid pinned up, and her shoulder pressed into my arm.
The candles in the old nave shook when the choir sang.
My father cried at the first hymn, as he always does.
I handed him a handkerchief, and he took it without looking at me.
We had not talked about the phone call under the pecan tree.
He had been polite to me for five weeks, and polite was worse than angry.
When the choir sat, he leaned over, and the pew creaked.
"Son," he said, very low.
"Sir."
"You should have told her in August."
I looked straight ahead at the altar.
"I know," I said.
"I'd have understood," my father said. "I'd have been hurt, and I'd have understood."
"Yes, sir."
"I made you carry that. That was my fault, too."
His hand came down on my knee, big and heavy and warm, and stayed there through the Gloria.
Beside me, Maricela's fingers slid into my other hand and held it.
She had heard every word.
She did not look at me, and she did not need to.
At home she shut the door of her room behind us.
I did not touch her.
I stood by her dresser in my suit, and she stood by the bed in her black dress.
The Christmas lights on the fire escape made red and green squares on the wall.
"Maricela."
"Yes," she said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Mom Handed Us One Lease, So I Handed My Stepbrother My Bed are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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