Seven Men Called Me Her Stand-In, So I Made Them Pay novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Dish Towels

June's POV

My mother met the six of them on the porch with a stack of dish towels over her arm.

She sat in a kitchen chair she had made me carry outside.

A blanket lay over her knees, and the edge of a pink scar showed at her collar.

"Line up," Janet said.

They lined up.

I stood in the doorway behind her with a dish rack in my hands.

I tried not to laugh, because it would have ruined it.

"You came for dinner," she told them. "Nobody eats in my house who hasn't paid. I don't mean money. Show me what you brought."

The surgeon went first, because he always did.

"Your follow-up schedule," he said, and held out a folded page. "I'll drive up on the first Saturday of every month. I've told the hospital the bill's been settled."

"By whom?"

"By me. I'm not discussing the amount."

"That's something," Janet said. "That's one." She handed him a towel. "Dry."

The architect had a paint can in each hand.

"Green," he said. "For the front door. I drew it on a napkin once, for her. I thought she should see it done."

My mother turned her head and looked at the door, which was blue like the rest of the cottage and had been all summer.

"I thought I'd picked blue," she said.

"You did. I'll be very quiet while I paint over it."

She laughed, once, and it pulled at her chest, and she put her hand there.

"After dinner," she said. "Take a towel now."

The driver had brought a toolbox, and a new porch rail in the van.

The pianist had a tuning fork and a leather case.

"The upright in the front room," he said, pointing his chin at it through the window. "It's flat by a quarter tone. It's been bothering me since I saw it."

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