My Father Gave Me a New Big Brother, and the Only Man I Could Run To Was the One Who Put Him There novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Pantry
My father was in the kitchen at five in the morning, sitting at the steel counter under the one light.
He had not been to bed.
His white chef's apron was on over yesterday's shirt, and in front of him lay a ring of keys and a long envelope.
I stopped in the doorway.
"Rali," he said.
He had not called me Maialen.
"Aita."
"Sit, neska. Please."
I sat on a stool across the counter.
Neither of us said anything for a time.
The refrigerator hummed.
"The notary opens at eight," my father said. "I've called him at home. The deed comes back to you."
"To me."
"To you, and in your name only. I should have asked before I signed anything, and I did not." He put his big hands flat on the steel. "I would like to say why."
"I'd like to hear it."
"When your mother died, there was a chair at the table that nobody could sit in."
His voice was steady.
It cost him.
"I couldn't look at the chair. I couldn't look at you, either, because you had her mouth, and you stood at that register with her apron on and did her work, and I let you. Every day I let you."
"Aita."
He kept going.
"I wanted a son. That's what I told myself. A man to leave the house to, to sit at the head of the table. But that was a lie, Rali. I wanted someone to fill the chair so I wouldn't have to see it empty."
I looked at the counter.
"You didn't ask me."
"No."
His voice did not shake.
"You gave away my mother's name without asking me."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Father Gave Me a New Big Brother, and the Only Man I Could Run To Was the One Who Put Him There are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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