He Waited for Fifteen Years novel · Chapter 17 of 48
Chapter 17: Odessa
I put the box of my father's things down on the ramp.
Then I climbed up on the edge of the dumpster in my good shoes.
"Miss Ferraro," the guard said. "Let me."
"No. I've got her."
The frame was heavier than I expected.
I got my hands under the bottom edge and pulled, and coffee cups slid off the canvas onto the carpet scraps.
The guard reached up and took the other side.
Together we lowered her onto the concrete.
The painter had done her at forty-one, at the company's fiftieth anniversary, in a dark green dress with her hair up.
She was smiling the way she smiled at my father when he said something stupid.
The hole went right through the middle of her cheek.
The guard stood looking at it with his hat in his hands.
"I didn't know," he said. "They had a crew take it down Wednesday night. I didn't know where it went."
"I know you didn't."
He drove us home himself in his own car, with the portrait across the back seat and the box on my lap.
My mother met us on the sidewalk.
She looked at the painting for a long time.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of He Waited for Fifteen Years are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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