My Stepbrother Banned My Fish Fry, So I Made Him Beg novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Karl's POV: The Card
Karl's POV
I took my mother's card off the wall at eleven-twenty on Saturday night, after the last bowler had gone.
The tape had been up nine years and it came away yellow and stiff.
I stood at the fryer with the card in my fingers and my stomach in my throat.
It was an ordinary three-by-five index card.
The ink was brown, and the corners were soft with grease.
My mother had written Batter across the top in the loops she used for church bulletins.
Under her list of flour, salt, and beer I had added one word in pencil, two months ago, and said it to nobody.
Seltzer.
Basia was on the other side of the steel counter with her sleeves pushed to the elbow, scrubbing the last fryer basket.
She looked up and saw what I held.
She put down the brush.
"Hartmann," she said. "What are you doing?"
"Give me your hand."
She dried it on her apron and held it out.
I laid the card across her palm.
Her fingers did not close.
She looked at me, and then at it, and her face went white under the burn scars.
"I can't take that," she said.
"It's yours," I said.
"It's your mother's handwriting."
"I know whose handwriting it is."
My voice came out rough.
She did not take her eyes off my face.
"It's the only thing in this building I can't stand to lose," I said.
I had never let anyone touch it.
My father had asked once, and I had said no.
"Then why-"
"Because I said a thing to your mother at the wedding."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Stepbrother Banned My Fish Fry, So I Made Him Beg are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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