He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Rhea
The Vasilakis kitchen had not changed in five years.
The same long scrubbed table, the same copper pots on the wall, the same icon of the Virgin in the corner with a red lamp burning under it.
The same smell of lemon and old oil.
I had cooked in that room for three years, under that woman's eye.
I stood in the doorway at six o'clock with Anders at my shoulder, and I felt my stomach clench.
Rhea sat at the head of the table in her black silk, with her hair pinned up again.
She had washed her face.
She looked exactly as she had that Sunday, composed and flat and upright, except that her hands lay open on the cloth in front of her with nothing in them.
The priest sat on her right, with the register of the plot.
On her left sat the two oldest women of the sponge docks, whose names the whole town knew and I will not write.
One was the cook with the walking stick.
The other was a tiny woman of ninety in a black headscarf who had delivered half the children in the parish and buried the other half.
Nobody had offered coffee.
"Sit," Rhea said.
"I'll stand."
"Then stand."
She looked at Anders.
"He may stay.
"He has the face of a man who will not speak unless he is asked, and I find that restful."
Anders said nothing.
Rhea folded her hands.
"I'll tell it once," she said.
"I do not intend to be questioned.
"I do not intend to weep.
"When I have finished, you may do what you like."
She looked at the icon.
"My husband died when Leo was twenty-one.
"He left me a house, a daughter of nine, and a stepson who had his father's temper and none of his father's patience.
"I had been Leo's mother since he was twelve.
"He called me Mother, and I ran this house, and I kept the books of this family.
"Every man at that dock has been paid by my hand for twenty years."
She paused.
"I was afraid of my stepson from the day his father was buried."
The priest shifted.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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