I Thought Love Had to Be Earned Through Chores, They Hugged Me novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Helper

The police came and wrote things down.

They took the license plate from the walking group's videos and said they'd be in touch.

The neighbor stood in his hydrangeas and didn't ask for his twenty dollars back.

I gave it to him anyway.

My father walked in the front door at seven that night with his overnight bag still in his hand.

He'd turned around at the Denver airport.

He didn't say hello.

He came straight to the dining room, where the rest of us were sitting down to a pot roast nobody wanted, and he looked at me until he'd counted all my arms and legs.

Then he sat.

The housekeeper served.

I wasn't allowed to help. My mother had said so, in a voice I hadn't heard before.

So I sat on my hands.

Wesley didn't touch his plate.

"Tell Dad what she said," he said to my mother. "Noreen. At the car."

My mother looked at her napkin.

"Wesley, not at dinner."

"She said, 'Tell your little helper thanks for the address.'" He turned to my father. "And then she looked at Minnie."

"She looked at you," I said.

"She thanked somebody for telling her where you'd be. Who else would it be?"

My father put his fork down.

"Wesley."

"Dad, she calls Noreen. She told you herself. It's a rule."

"I call when I move," I said again.

My voice came out smaller than I wanted.

I cleared it.

"I didn't move today. I'm still here. And I didn't know I was going next door until I was already ringing the bell."

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