They Sold Me for Five Million, So I Collected It Myself novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Noreen's Kitchen

The house on Poplar Street had a wreath on the door in every season, and this one was orange.

Noreen opened it before I knocked.

She had changed into a soft pink sweater, and she was smiling.

"You came," she said. "I knew you would. Tamar, honey, come in."

Cleo's first text arrived as I crossed the threshold.

3:01. You alive?

I typed, Yes, and put the phone in my pocket.

The hall smelled of lemon polish and fried onions, the way it had every day of my childhood.

My shoes fit the groove in the carpet.

I'd walked that groove thousands of times, in and out, to school and to my room and to the table where they read my costs to me.

"Locket first," I said.

Noreen touched her throat.

"Of course."

She reached behind her neck, undid the clasp, and held it out in her palm.

It was warmer than I expected.

A small oval of gold, rubbed soft at the edges, with a rose on the front.

I opened it with my thumbnail.

Inside there were two faces, no bigger than grains of rice. A young man with dark hair and a thin, shy smile. A young woman with her head tipped back, laughing.

I had never seen my father's face.

I held on to the counter with my free hand.

"They were beautiful," Noreen said, in a voice I didn't know. "Your mother couldn't keep her hair out of her mouth."

"Don't."

"I'm only saying." Noreen said.

"You wore this for years. You looked at them in the mirror every morning. You let me think I had no photograph."

"Roland said it would make you soft." she said.

"Roland said."

I closed the locket and put it around my neck, and fastened it, and it lay against my sternum, small and warm.

Something inside me that had been unsteady for twenty years stood up straight.

"You wanted to talk," I said. "Talk."

Noreen set the kettle on.

I watched her hands move.

She put out two cups, the good ones, and sugar, and lemon, and did all of it slowly, to make me wait.

"You have a lot of money now," she said. "Five million is a great deal. You don't need all of it. You're twenty. You'll want to be careful."

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