I Left My Husband Bleeding, and the Mob Boss Said Good novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Easter
Warda came in with the dawn and a basket of eggs dyed red.
She set them on my kitchen table one at a time, in a circle, and did not say a word about how she had come.
"I left the gate open for you," I said.
"I know. I took it."
Yara came down the stairs in a yellow dress with her red cup, and stopped at the bottom step.
"Tayta," she said, and went straight to her grandmother's lap.
By ten the house smelled of lamb and cardamom and the dough of the Easter bread.
The housekeeper had cooked since Thursday and cried twice, and said it was the onions.
Marwan carved the lamb standing at the sideboard with his sleeves rolled.
The ring of dough hung on a thin chain inside his open collar.
We sat down at noon, the five of us and the driver, who had been told to sit and sat on the very edge of his chair.
Warda took the place at Yara's right hand.
Yara put her red cup in front of her grandmother, which was the highest honor she had to give.
"Eat," said Warda, and then, to me, quietly in Chaldean, "Yousif set the table for twelve at home."
"And?"
"Twelve chairs. Nobody came."
I looked at her.
"He sits at the head of it," she said. "He has not said my name. I left the key in the dish by the door."
"Are you all right, Mama Warda?"
"I am sitting at my granddaughter's table," she said, "on Easter Sunday. That is what I am."
Yara bit a piece of bread with great concentration and held out the other half to Warda.
Warda took it and ate it.
After the lamb, I put a key beside Marwan's plate.
It was brass and plain and tagged with a paper label.
He picked it up and looked at the label.
"Michigan Avenue," he said.
"The corner by the pharmacy," I said. "The window onto the street."
"Nahla," he said.
"The lease is in my name. I signed it on Friday. I haven't told you because you would have offered to pay the deposit."
"I would have."
"I paid it myself," I said. "Do you remember the woman at church who ordered forty trays of date pastries from me the week I left?"
His face went still.
"She came to the gate on Thursday. She said she had never cancelled the order."
I laughed, and my voice cracked.
"I made forty trays," I said. "I baked them in your kitchen at three in the morning. That is the deposit."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Left My Husband Bleeding, and the Mob Boss Said Good are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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