Mom Handed Us One Lease, So I Handed My Stepbrother My Bed novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Candelaria
On the second of February the apartment on Pereida Street held thirteen people, and it was legal for six.
My mother had the stockpot.
Erwin had the beer, and he had carried a cooler of it up the stairs on his shoulder, wheezing.
My Abuela sat in the one good chair by the window with a plate on her knee, supervising.
Mrs. downstairs sat beside her, and the two of them had been comparing grandchildren in Spanish for an hour.
It was Candelaria, and the baby from the rosca sat on my windowsill, and I had made two hundred tamales.
Jakob stood at the counter in a pressed white shirt with the sleeves rolled, pouring coffee.
Every time I looked at him he was already looking at me.
In my back pocket I carried a folded lease, a corn husk, a plain silver ring and a brass key on a ribbon.
At two o'clock I tapped a spoon against a glass.
"Everybody," I said. "Everybody, please."
Nobody heard me.
"Mija, you're too short," my mother called. "Get on a chair."
I got on a chair.
The room turned toward me and went quiet.
"In May my mother handed me the lease to this apartment," I said. "It was supposed to be mine alone."
"Then a stepbrother showed up with a fire extinguisher, and nothing was alone after that."
Somebody laughed.
Erwin laughed loudest, with tears already running into his mustache.
I took the lease out of my pocket and unfolded it.
"The landlady renewed it on Saturday," I said. "It has two names on it now."
I stepped down and crossed the kitchen to Jakob.
He had put the coffeepot down, and he stood with his hands at his sides and a very still face.
"Jakob Kothmann," I said, and held out the lease. "I'm handing you the lease."
He took it.
"And I have one more thing."
I held up the corn husk.
I had written on it in marker, in letters that would not smudge, and my hand shook.
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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