They Excluded Me From the Family, So I Built a New One novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: A Key With Your Name

Libby came home from the dorm on Tuesday night with a duffel bag and a laundry basket.

Her face said she had rehearsed something.

I was at the stove.

I had a pot of my mother's chowder going, the kind that took two hours and a whole afternoon of my attention.

"Hi," she said from the doorway.

"Hi."

"Can I talk to you?"

"You can talk to me while you stir."

She put down the laundry basket and took the spoon.

For a minute she stirred, and I chopped parsley.

"I called the registrar today," she said.

"For what?"

"To ask what it takes to take a semester off." She kept her eyes on the pot. "I could work. I could pay back some of what you spent on the lawyers. I could..."

"No."

"Aunt Sue..."

"No," I said again, and put the knife down. "Libby, look at me."

She looked.

Her eyes were red, and I knew she'd been crying on the T.

"You are not a bill," I said. "You are not a favor. You are not something I carry because somebody died and left me holding you."

"I know you say that."

"Because it's true."

"But I sent the thumbs-up." Her voice cracked. "I sent it, and I didn't even read it, and I let you sit there being laughed at, and I was part of it."

"For about two weeks you were part of it."

"Two weeks is a long time."

"It's two weeks of a twenty-year life, and you skipped an exam to come to my door and say so." I came around the counter. "I have been a grown woman for a long time, Libby. I know the difference between someone who hurt me and someone who got lied to and fixed it."

She let out a sob that turned into a laugh halfway through.

"I made a list of ways to apologize," she said. "There were eleven."

"Did I earn all eleven?"

"I didn't know where to stop."

"Then we'll skip them."

I put my arms around her, and she dropped her forehead on my collarbone.

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