I Couldn't Pay My Three Landlords, So I Gave Them a Baby novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Christmas Morning
At six on Christmas morning the first-floor kitchen was gray with snow light, and Cas had the good cups out.
They stood on the table in a row, white china with a gold rim, from the glass cabinet.
I came in barefoot in Rudy's flannel shirt, which stopped at my thighs and no longer closed over the baby.
It smelled of butter and coffee, as it had on every morning of my life in that building.
Rudy sat at the table with his fork in his hand.
Joey stood at the sink with a dish towel over his shoulder.
At the head of the table stood Stan's chair, pulled out a few inches from the wall.
"Sit," Cas said.
He stood by the stove with a spatula and a pencil behind his ear.
"That's his chair."
"It's yours," Cas said. "Sit down, Renia."
I crossed the linoleum and put my hand on the worn wooden back, where an old man's hand had rested for forty years.
Then I sat.
It was a hard chair, and it creaked, and it held me.
I felt the table in front of me, and the cup, and the three of them looking.
"Pop would've given you the bread," Rudy said, thickly.
"I know."
Joey set a plate of eggs in front of me and a slice of toast, buttered to the edges.
I took a bite and cried.
The baby turned over under my ribs, hard and sudden, and I put my hand on the shirt.
"She's up," I said.
All three of them were beside the chair before I had finished the sentence.
Joey knelt on my left and put his palm flat on the flannel.
Rudy knelt on my right and laid his hand over Joey's.
Cas stood behind the chair and slid his big hand around from my shoulder and down, and covered both.
For a moment there was nothing.
Then the baby kicked.
She kicked against Joey's palm and Rudy's fingers and Cas's thumb, a firm bright knock in the dead quiet of the kitchen.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Couldn't Pay My Three Landlords, So I Gave Them a Baby are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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