My Stepfather Lost Me in a Poker Game, Then I Cleaned Him Out novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: Home
Russ stared down at her.
At the end of the table the Houston man started to laugh.
He laughed until he had to hold on to his hat, and then he started clapping, slow and loud.
The car dealer from Mobile joined in, and then the man from April.
The deputy walked Russ out of the salon to the sound of every man he owed applauding his wife.
My mother's power of attorney was still lying on the felt on top of his chips.
I picked it up and put it in her lap.
She took one edge in her good hand, and I took the other, and we tore it in half together.
On Sunday morning she signed the real thing at our kitchen table on East Beach.
It was one page, revoking every power she'd ever given Russ Ladner.
She signed it in her huge left-hand capitals, JEANINE FAYARD, and left off his name.
Andre stamped it with the notary seal he used on bail papers, and Laurent and Brandi signed as witnesses.
Then I got my father's screwdriver out of the kitchen drawer.
I went down the hall and took the brass hook latch off the top of my mother's bedroom door.
It took four screws.
I dropped them in the trash one by one, where she could hear them land.
The lift went in on Monday.
Laurent had ordered it the morning after the salon and paid for it out of whatever he had left.
"I've got nothing else to spend it on," he said when I asked. "I'm unemployed."
It was a narrow chair on a rail that ran down the inside stairs from the kitchen to the net room.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of My Stepfather Lost Me in a Poker Game, Then I Cleaned Him Out are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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