The Godfather's Heartbroken Lover novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The Key
"Friday," I told her. "I'm coming home Friday."
"Is the horse cake coming?"
"The horse cake is for your birthday."
"My birthday is in eighteen days," she said, with deep suspicion. "Papa says that's not soon."
"It's very soon."
"Okay." A pause. "Did you see a yellow taxi?"
"I saw a hundred yellow taxis."
"Bring the biggest one," she said, and handed the phone back to her father without saying goodbye.
Konrad was laughing.
"She's been counting," he said.
"I'll be there Friday."
"I know," he said. "I'll be on the landing."
I left Court Street with my old morning baker, who'd quit the day the gold sign went up.
She came back on Wednesday and swore on her mother's grave she'd follow the book to the gram.
Dora took the counter.
"I'm amazing at this," she said, giving a man the wrong change. "I was born to sell cake to people who are scared of my family."
On Friday night I climbed the four flights to my aunt's flat with my suitcase banging every step.
My aunt opened the door before I knocked.
She looked at me.
"You slept with him," she said.
"Hello to you too."
"It's on your face. Like flour." She stepped back to let me in. "Come. Eat. Then you'll go across the landing and be honest. I shared a bed with your mother for sixteen years, I know what this family looks like when it's guilty."
Across the landing, Konrad's door opened.
He stood in it in his jeans and a grey T-shirt, with a dish towel over one shoulder.
His daughter shot out under his arm.
"Klara! Did you bring the taxi?"
I took a tiny yellow die-cast cab out of my coat pocket.
She screamed.
She ran back inside with it to show nobody in particular.
Konrad and I looked at each other across three steps of landing.
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