They Chose the Daughter I Found, So I Called In Their Loans novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Sunday Lunch

Gran lived on the second floor of a triple-decker in Dorchester, up a flight of stairs with a rubber runner.

She opened her door before we knocked.

"You're late," she said. "The stew's got a skin."

"We're early," Gabriel said.

"Then the stew's early, and it's still got a skin. Come in, Doctor. Take off your wet things."

She was in a quilted housecoat with her white hair brushed flat.

She was a week out of the hospital and looked forty years better than she had on the gurney.

The kitchen smelled of onions and burnt toast.

There were three chairs at a table meant for four, and a picture of the Sacred Heart over the stove.

"Sit there," Gran said to me. "Not you. You, Gabriel Francis, you'll cut the bread."

He cut the bread.

It had been burned once already, and he cut off the black part one slow stroke at a time.

"That's not the bread I bought," Gran said.

"I made it," Gabriel said.

"I can tell."

"It's a recipe from the Globe," he said.

"The Globe has never baked anything."

I laughed into my spoon.

The stew was thick with potatoes and a good deal of pepper, and I had not had a home-cooked meal in nine days.

Gran watched me eat the first bowl, and she ladled out a second without asking.

"So," she said. "They put you out."

Gabriel dropped the knife.

"Gran."

"It's a fair question. He told me nothing and I've got ears." She turned her sharp little face to me. "They put you out, Doctor?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

"After how many years?"

"Twenty-five," I said.

"Hm." She buttered the bread I'd been given. "You know what my husband's mother used to say about people like that?"

"What?"

"She wouldn't repeat it in front of the Sacred Heart." Gran leaned back. "Now. You eat, and then I'll tell you what's wrong with this boy, so you can decide whether to bother."

"Gran."

"He's wonderful with money and terrible at staying in a room."

"I'm in the room," Gabriel said.

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