He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Unburied
Leo did not lift a hand.
He stood with his cheek red and his arms at his sides, and let his stepmother hit him again.
She struck him on the other side, with the flat of her palm.
"You fool," Rhea said, in a voice I had never heard from her, high and cracked.
"You stupid, stupid boy.
"You were told to leave it.
"I told you she was dead.
"I told you to let her be dead."
"Mother," Leo said.
"I would have given you everything," she said.
"I held this family up with my two hands, and you had to dig."
She heard what she had said.
I watched her hear it.
The whole church had gone absolutely still, and in the silence three hundred people understood that she had admitted it.
The priest closed the leather book very softly.
"Rhea," he said.
"Come into the sacristy, and we will speak before God."
"I will not."
"Then we will speak here," said the old cook from the back of the church, and she rapped her walking stick once on the marble floor.
I saw the women of the docks stand up, one at a time, in their black scarves.
They did not hurry.
They came up the aisle together with the cook leading.
They stopped in a half circle around the front pew and looked at Rhea.
Nobody said anything at all.
Behind me, I heard the men begin to leave.
Not the old men.
Leo's own men, the two dozen in black jackets, who stood along the side walls of every Vasilakis wedding and funeral.
I heard the first one set his hat on his head and walk out of the side door.
Then the second.
Then the rest went out in a long file, their boots loud on the stone.
A big gray man with a signet ring rose from the second pew.
He was Leo's uncle.
He looked at his nephew for a long time.
"The cooperative will meet Monday," he said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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