She Handed Me a Paper Plate, So I Canceled Her Whole Family novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Without the But

The text from my mother came in at six the next morning.

Esther Kittredge just called me. She says you are unwell and spending his money. I told her you never spent a dime you didn't earn and hung up. Sunday dinner. Bring the tall one.

I read it at Daniel's counter and laughed for the first time in days.

"She called my mother," I said. "She called my college roommate. She called two women from my father's funeral."

Daniel put a mug in front of me.

"That's what she has left," he said. "A phone."

By Thursday she had used it on everyone I had ever mentioned, and none of them had changed their minds.

Thursday night was the Pathlight holiday party.

Three hundred employees and their families filled the Stamford atrium, with a string quartet and a bar and paper cups of cider.

I had just picked up the microphone for the toast when the revolving door turned.

Esther came in wearing her navy wool coat, with Brodie a step behind her.

The quartet stopped on its own.

"I'd like a word with my daughter-in-law's employees," Esther said, and walked into the middle of the floor.

Three hundred people turned to look at her.

"This woman will cut every one of you loose the moment it suits her," she said. "She did it to her own family."

For a second nobody spoke.

"You mean like the card?" said the young woman in the green sweater.

The atrium laughed.

It was not a cruel laugh, and that was what made it land.

Esther's chin came up.

"My son has been dragged through the mud. I will not stand by while..."

"Mom," Brodie said. "Stop. Please."

He crossed the floor, and I thought he was going to take her arm.

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