They Threw Out the Maid's Daughter, Now She Sits at Their Table novel · Chapter 16 of 32

Chapter 16: The Kitchen Door

"That's a forgery," said Ye-rin.

The chairman said nothing.

"My mother took no money. She turned down a house in a garden on her knees. She wears the same blue dress to church." Her voice came out high and strange. "Anyone can print a bank statement."

"Anyone can," said the old man. "The bank will confirm it, if you ask."

She looked at Seo-jun.

He was reading the sheet and his face had gone grey.

He did not say it was a forgery.

She understood that he had not known, and also that he believed it.

"You told me," she said, "that you'd tell me everything. That you wouldn't hide anything. You hid the shares."

"Ye-rin."

"You were going to tell me tonight." She laughed, and it hurt. "You've got a night for everything."

"That isn't the same."

"I wrote the terms, and I'm ending them. This is over." She picked up her bag. "Whatever this was, whatever we are."

Seo-jun did not move.

He did not say her name again.

He stood on the green carpet with his hands at his sides, and let her go.

She was proud of that for the length of the east corridor, and then she was not.

The back stair was at the end of the servants' passage.

She had gone up and down it ten thousand times with trays, and she took it now without thinking.

It smelled of floor polish and boiled barley.

Halfway down she sat on the third step and put her face in her hands.

The third step.

She did not cry.

She sat with her fists against her mouth and her breath tearing in and out and thought, my mother.

She heard him coming.

She knew the weight of the footfalls by now, long and unhurried, with the heel set first.

He stopped two steps above her.

"Go away," she said.

"I can't."

"Your chairman is waiting. He'll make you chairman. You'll have your seat back. Go and take it," she said.

"I don't want it."

"Then what do you want?" she asked.

"You."

She stood up so fast that she turned an ankle, and he caught her by the arms.

"Don't you touch me," she said, and put both her hands flat on his chest and shoved.

He went back against the wall, and she followed him and struck his shoulder with her fist.

He let her.

She hit him again, lower, on the ribs, and again.

"You hid it," she said. "You hid it, you hid it, you let me say your name"

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