He Stole My Bill, So I Divorced Him and Outranked His Father novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Church Supper
My father had gone to the Lutheran sausage supper, and he would not be home until nine.
He told me so twice on the phone, and then once more in the driveway through the truck window, looking at his boots.
"Plates in the oven," Gus said. "Don't wait on me."
He drove off in his Ford with the dome light on, which is how he drives when he is embarrassed.
Emilio stood in my mother's kitchen with his hat in his hand.
He had never worn a hat in his life. My father had made him take one off a nail on the porch.
"He did that on purpose," Emilio said.
"He did it on purpose," I agreed.
The kitchen had a yellow oilcloth on the table and a rooster clock over the stove.
My mother's recipe cards were taped to the inside of the cabinet door, in her slanting hand, with butter stains on the corners.
I had cried at this table when I was eleven, and again when I was twenty-three, and the week she died.
I had never brought a man to it.
"Sit," I said.
He sat in the chair by the window.
He laid the hat on the table and put his hands on his knees.
I opened my handbag and took out a small box and set it in front of him.
Inside lay a bullet of brushed steel no longer than my thumb, and a remote the size of a car key.
"I bought it Tuesday," I said. "At a shop on Burnet Road, with a clerk who didn't blink."
He looked at it for a long time.
"For what?" he said.
"For this weekend. For when I'm in charge of you in public."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Stole My Bill, So I Divorced Him and Outranked His Father are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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