He Gave Me $18, So I Left Him with Nothing novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Payroll Friday

Lydia brought the paper to the yard office on Wednesday, in a grocery bag, under a bunch of bananas.

"She's at the beauty parlor till noon," she said. "I was in and out in four minutes."

She put it in my hands and left before I could thank her.

It was one sheet, typed, with my signature at the bottom.

I knew the signature.

It was the one from the school forms and the permission slips, the one that said Katherine Gaffney, the one I had written at my father's funeral lunch with a stranger's pen.

I did not read it alone.

The legal aid lawyer came at ten with her crackers, and sat at my father's desk, and read it in silence with her glasses pushed up on her head.

Clark stood by the window.

"Well," she said at last.

"Is it twenty years?"

"The heading says twenty." She tapped paragraph eleven. "Paragraph eleven says the owner may end this agreement at any time, by written notice handed to the manager in person."

My breath went out of me.

"At any time."

"At any time. In person. Not mailed, not left on a porch. She has to be standing there, and you have to put it in her hand."

"She's been dodging me for two weeks."

"I'd guess she knows exactly what paragraph eleven says." The lawyer looked at me over the page. "She just hoped you'd never read it."

"So she lied. At the meeting."

"She said a heading was a sentence. People do."

I looked at the signature again.

I had signed the one paper in the world that could undo itself, and she had been sure I'd never ask.

"Hand it to her," the lawyer said, "in front of as many people as you can find. And get it witnessed."

She folded her glasses.

"Don't mail it. Whatever you do, don't mail it."

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