Banished at Dad's Wake, So I Came Back to Run the Boardwalk novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Flour
Asher's POV
On the Friday before the Closing, I woke at noon to a cold pillow and an empty closet shelf.
The duffel was gone.
It was the same canvas bag she had carried in off the Philadelphia bus on the last night of May.
I had never once seen her unpack it fully.
The key to her father's house was gone from the dish on the nightstand.
Her phone was gone, and so was she.
I stood in the bedroom in my shorts with my hand on the empty shelf, and the ten years came back up through the floor.
I had been here before.
I had stood in a doorway on a Saturday night and watched a girl in a black dress carry a bag out into the dark.
I had done nothing.
I do not remember dressing.
Sunday was two days off.
She had sent Silvio's card back to him on Sunday morning with one word written across it in pen, and the word was No.
The Closing would be held on Labor Day Sunday as the old custom said, and she would have her chair or she would not.
She had said she would stay.
She had said it on the floor of my kitchen with her cheek on the tile.
I drove to Margate with the window down, because the car smelled of her, and I could not stand to breathe it.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Banished at Dad's Wake, So I Came Back to Run the Boardwalk are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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