Seven Days to Disappear from My Mafia Stepbrother novel · Chapter 6 of 32

Chapter 6: The Last Good Night

I typed the answer on the bench with the ring cold on my thumb.

Not until I'm gone. I'll leave him a letter.

Then write it well. He will read it more than once.

On Friday afternoon I sat on a plastic stool beside Leni's dialysis chair with a bottle of red polish.

The machine hummed and turned her blood around in clear tubing.

I'd always thought it looked like a sign with the gas let out.

"Hold still."

"I am holding still. You're the one shaking."

"I'm not shaking."

"You painted my cuticle, Roxie. You never paint a cuticle."

I wiped it with my thumb.

The nurse at the next chair pretended not to listen.

Leni let her head fall back against the vinyl.

"So. The ladder."

"What about it?"

"The whole Hill is talking about the ladder. The bakery lady told my hairdresser the Don stood on Atwells for seven hours holding a ladder for a girl."

"Which bakery lady?"

"The one with the mustache." Leni opened one eye. "Was he good at it?"

"At holding a ladder?"

"At anything."

I painted her pinky so I wouldn't have to look at her.

"He was adequate."

She laughed so loud the nurse turned around.

It was the first real laugh I'd heard from her in a month.

I made myself remember exactly how it sounded.

"When this is over," she said, "whatever over means, we're going to Atlantic City and I'm going to eat a funnel cake the size of my head."

"You can't have a funnel cake."

"I can after. After, I'm eating everything. You're going to hold my hair."

"Deal."

I blew on her nails.

She held them up to the window and wiggled them.

"Look at that. I look like a woman with two working organs."

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