They Left Me Out of Their Group So I'll Leave Them Out of My Life novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Hartman Street

The Buick pulled away from the curb before either of us had moved.

I took my coat off the hook.

"Corina," Nate said. "Wait. Let me drive you."

"No."

"You shouldn't go alone."

"I'm going to have a conversation with my mother," I said. "She's been planning one for six weeks. I'd like to be the one who starts it."

I drove to Hartman Street with both hands tight on the wheel.

The silver Buick was already in the driveway, and the porch light was on.

The wreath on the door had been changed to spring flowers.

I let myself in with the key I had never given back.

My mother was in the kitchen in her apron, rinsing a single teacup in the sink.

She didn't turn around.

"I wondered how long you'd take."

"I know about the shop," I said.

"Do you."

"I know about Lakeland Credit Union. I know about the second lien. I know about twenty-two payments of fourteen hundred dollars that went to Dad's loan and not to Colby's school."

The water kept running.

She turned it off and dried her hands on a dish towel.

Then she faced me, and she was not frightened.

"Who told you?" she said. "Keely?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to Keely."

"Mom. Did you take Grandma's money and use it to pay for Dad's shop?"

"Yes."

She said it so simply that I thought I had misheard.

"I did," she said. "And I'd do it again. You had forty thousand dollars sitting in a savings account and no one to spend it on. Your father has run that shop for thirty years. Colby was failing out of school. Somebody had to do something, Corina, and you're the only one in this family who never does."

"You lied to me."

"I told you what you needed to hear so that you'd say yes."

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