I Cried at the Chairman's Funeral for Money novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The Seam
Shen Ke stayed on the bumper until the car door opened behind him.
Hanzhou got out slowly and stood in the oil-stained light of the garage court, with his hands at his sides.
"Don't tell me it's all right," he said.
"I wasn't going to," said Shen Ke. "I came to sit."
"For how long?"
"Until you want to walk back."
Hanzhou looked at the wall for a time.
Then he sat down on the bumper beside him, and Shen Ke took his hand, and neither of them said anything until the light moved.
"He said no hurry," said Hanzhou at last. "On the telephone. I have never been able to hear the end."
"I know."
"I didn't ask how you knew."
"You said it in your sleep three nights ago," said Shen Ke. "Twice."
Hanzhou's hand tightened on his.
"Not the house tonight," he said.
"The flat?"
"The flat."
The lake was black beneath the glass wall, with the lights of the far shore laid along it.
Hanzhou did not turn on a lamp.
He stood in the middle of the floor in his suit with his arms hanging.
For the first time since Shen Ke had known him, he had nothing left to hold himself up with.
"I do not know what to do," he said. "I have no form for this."
"Then don't do anything." Shen Ke took off his own coat and let it fall. "Tonight I'll do it. All of it."
"Ke."
"You don't have to be exact. You don't have to be good. Stand there."
He undid the white armband first, and folded it, and put it on the table.
He took off the black jacket, and the tie, and the shirt.
Hanzhou let him, with his eyes on the ceiling and his jaw working.
"Look at me," said Shen Ke.
Hanzhou looked.
His eyes were dry and red, and under the dryness was everything he had failed to say in the ancestral hall.
Shen Ke put a hand on either side of his face and kissed him very slowly.
He felt the long shudder go all the way down.
"There," he said. "You can let go of it now."
"I can't."
"Then I'll hold it for you."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of I Cried at the Chairman's Funeral for Money are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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