In Sickness and in Lies novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: Gwyneth Snyder

The Pilsen print shop had been a bakery once, and it still had the long tiled counter and the high tin ceiling.

My mother stood in the middle of the floor with a cane in her left hand.

The speech therapist hovered three steps behind her with a folded wheelchair she wasn't allowed to open.

"I walked," my mother said as I came through the door. "From the elevator. To here."

"That's forty feet," I said.

"Forty-two. I counted."

I put both arms around her, very carefully, and she patted my back with her bad hand and her good one.

"Don't cry on the... cardigan."

"I'll try."

"Tonight," she said into my shoulder, "I walk you in."

"Mom, you can't walk the whole..."

"I give orders now."

Bruce was at the door behind me with a box of printed cards.

He met my eye over her head and shook his own very slightly.

He wasn't going to argue with her either.

The show opened at six.

By a quarter to, the shop was full.

The old art teacher who owned the place had taken the sign down and hung one that said only PRESSED, and she stood at the door pouring wine in a velvet jacket.

The West Loop gallery owner had come, and she kissed my cheek and said nothing about the lease.

The retired trust officer sat in a chair by the window with her cane across her knees.

The assistant in the grey cardigan stood in a corner with a plate of cheese, and four people from the fortieth floor stood with her.

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