My Father Bet My Year at the Boucherie, So I Signed It Myself and Named the Terms novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Second Truck
"On the night of the fourteenth of February, four years ago," Seb said, "my wife put our daughter in the back of her car and drove to the plant to tell me something."
He said it to the fire.
The old men sat very still in their half circle.
The priest had taken off his scarf.
"She never got to the gate.
"She was run off the Henderson levee road by a truck with its lights out.
"The car went into the lake with Margot in the back."
A woman among the families made a small, shocked sound.
"I was told for four years that it was an accident.
"I was told I was late."
"Seb," Blake said.
"I was told it by my brother."
"Seb, this is no place for it."
"I was told it by my oldest friend," Seb said.
He still did not look at Blake.
"They held me at the funeral.
"They paid the people who needed paying.
"They told me every Christmas that it wasn't my fault, and they told me in a voice that let me know it was."
Andrei had not moved from the edge of the circle.
His glasses were two small fires.
"This is a grief episode," he said quietly, to the old men.
"I've seen it before.
"It comes every February.
"I'm sorry the girl has put him up to it."
"The girl has put me up to nothing," Seb said.
"The girl asked me what my daughter drew."
He held out his hand.
I came up beside him with the school bag.
I took out the first drawing, the one folded in thirds, and put it in his palm.
He held it up to the fire.
It was a small car, nose-down in blue water.
Above it, on a gray line, stood a long dark truck, with its lights blacked out until the paper shone.
"My daughter drew this every week for four years," he said.
"She showed it to every adult she knew.
"Every one of them said she was drawing the water."
He walked to the nearest old man and put it in his hands.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Father Bet My Year at the Boucherie, So I Signed It Myself and Named the Terms are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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