He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: My Mother's Bed
My mother's bedroom door stuck in its frame, as the guest room door on Almond Street had on Christmas morning.
I put my shoulder to it, and the swollen wood gave.
The room had been shut three years, and it smelled of lavender water and cold dust.
Her hairbrush lay on the dresser with gray hairs still in the bristles.
Her rosary hung from the bedpost, and her wedding quilt lay folded across the foot of the bed.
Cathal stood behind me in the doorway and did not come in.
"You're allowed in," I said.
"Am I?"
"I'm asking you."
He crossed the threshold with his hands at his sides.
I lit the little lamp on her nightstand, and the room turned amber.
I shook out the quilt and laid it over the bed.
It was a pattern of interlocking gold rings that she had stitched in the first year of her marriage.
My throat tightened.
"She'd have liked you," I said.
"She'd have hit me with the hairbrush."
"First," I said, "and then she'd have fed you."
His laugh was soft and unsteady.
I sat on the edge of her bed, and I held my hand out to him.
He took it.
"I forgive you for the funeral," I said.
He went still.
"I haven't said that.
"I haven't said it because I wanted to be sure, and I'm sure."
"Aisling."
"I forgive you for the pew, and the six years, and the lie you let them tell.
"I forgive you for all of it, Cathal, and I want to say it in this room."
His face broke.
He knelt in front of me on the rag rug, and put his forehead on my knees, and his shoulders shook.
I laid my hands on his head and held him.
"You don't have to say anything," I told him.
"Let me do the rest."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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