Dumping My Ex For His Uncle novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Keefer's

Frankie tracks the sticker on the intern's fresh tattoo to a Fells Point shop, where Ellis's estranged uncle Bram pulls her in from the rain and tells her who paid; then he shows her the numbers tattooed down his ribs.

"You can't take her," I said.

"I can do a lot of things you don't know about, Frankie."

He said it gently.

That was worse.

"She calls me at work to ask what ships I parked," I said. "She calls you when she wants money for the book fair."

"Then she'll learn to call me more."

I went down the last step.

My truck was across the street, and the rain was so loud I couldn't hear my own feet.

"Think about it over the weekend," he called after me. "My offer expires Monday."

I didn't turn around.

I drove home to Locust Point with the wipers on high.

Tilly was asleep on the couch in her tugboat pajamas, with the stuffed crab under her chin.

The sitter had left a note.

"She waited up till 9:30. She wants to know if you liked the cake."

I sat on the floor next to the couch and watched her breathe.

There was blue frosting dried in her eyebrow.

Ellis didn't come home.

At midnight I called my mate.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Cap?"

"I need someone to sit on my couch for two hours," I said. "Don't ask me why."

"I'm in my robe."

"Come in your robe."

She was there in ten minutes, with her robe under her raincoat and a bag of pretzels.

She took one look at my hand without the ring and said nothing.

She just sat down by Tilly's feet and opened the pretzels.

That's why she's my mate.

Fells Point was empty, the bars closing and the cobblestones shining.

Thames Street runs along the water.

I found the red door on the third block, in a skinny brick rowhouse with a dark window that said KEEFER'S in gold letters.

The sign said closed.

There was a light on in the back.

I knocked anyway.

Then I knocked harder.

The door opened and a bell rang over my head.

The man in the doorway was big enough to block the whole frame.

Black hair going gray at the sides. A short beard. A wet dish towel over one shoulder.

His right arm was covered from wrist to sleeve in ink: crabs, a lighthouse, a sailboat broken in half on the rocks.

I'd seen him once, six years ago, being steered out of my own wedding by his sister.

"You're Frankie," he said.

"You remember me?"

"You had a lot of hair on you that day." He looked past me at the street. "And you're standing in a monsoon."

I opened my mouth to say something smart.

What came out was a noise I'd never made in my life.

He didn't ask.

He reached out, took me by the elbow and pulled me in out of the rain.

The bell rang again as the door shut.

And then I was crying into a stranger's wet shirt, in a tattoo shop, at one in the morning, on my birthday.

He put one hand on the back of my head and kept it there.

He didn't say it was okay.

He didn't say anything at all.

He smelled like soap and green ink and coffee.

When I could breathe again, I stepped back and wiped my face with my sleeve.

"Sorry," I said. "I got your shirt."

"It was already wet." He held out the dish towel. "It's clean. Mostly."

I took it.

The shop had three black chairs, a counter with a glass case of rings, and walls covered in drawings of anchors and roses and swallows.

Through a door in the back I could see a kettle on a hot plate.

"Tea?" he said. "I don't have anything stronger. I don't keep it."

"I drive a tugboat at six on Sunday."

"Then tea."

He filled two mugs and set one in front of me on the counter.

I pulled up my phone and turned it around.

The second picture, the clear one, with the film on Sadie's hip and the little red door on the sticker.

He looked at it for a long time.

"September thirtieth," he said. "I did it myself."

"Who paid?"

"He did. Cash. He stood in my doorway and counted it out like he was tipping a valet." He set the phone down. "He didn't recognize me. He hasn't looked at me since he was a kid."

"And you didn't call me."

"I didn't have your number."

I couldn't argue with that.

I drank the tea, which was too strong, and told him the rest.

The cake. The ring in the frosting. Joan turning my phone over.

He laughed once, low, at the ring.

"That was my mother's ring," he said. "I hope it's still in the cake."

Then I told him about the steps and the rain and the one request.

He stopped laughing.

"Tilly," he said. "Your foster girl."

"She's eight. Her mom was killed by a freight truck on Pratt Street." My voice went thin. "The firm handled the case. They got a settlement for her."

"How much?"

"Three point four million. In a trust."

"And who runs the trust?"

"The firm. Until the adoption. Then whoever adopts her picks the trustee."

He put his mug down very carefully.

"Say that again."

"Ellis wants Tilly's trust," I said. "Doesn't he."

He didn't answer.

He took hold of the hem of his wet shirt and pulled it up over his left side.

Down his ribs, in plain black numbers, a column of ink.

1,100,000

212

"My sister," he said, "did it to me first."

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