My Stepbrother Came Home for the Anniversary, and I Didn't Know Him novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Washer

Matti's POV

I found Kaisa in the laundry room at nine on Sunday morning, scrubbing my white shirt with a bar of soap under the cold tap.

The blood from my back had dried into the cotton in long brown stripes, and she worked at them with her thumbnail.

She had on one of my T-shirts and nothing under it, and her braid was coming apart down her back.

We had picked up the Ranger from the boathouse yard at six, in the dark.

The kitchen light had been on at my father's house, and his shape had been sitting at the table with both hands around a cup.

I had sat in the truck with the engine off and looked at that window for ten minutes.

I hadn't gone in, and neither had she.

My phone was on the dryer.

My father had texted at seven: "Not angry at you. Not able to talk yet. Come by when you can."

I had read it over and over, and it didn't say anything different the last time.

"You're up," Kaisa said, without turning around.

"You're washing my shirt."

"It's ruined anyway."

"Then leave it," I said.

"I'll get it out," she said.

She had gotten out the eggs at seven, too, and the bandages at midnight, and the salve from under her sink.

She had put a pillow under my head while I slept on my stomach, and I had felt her do it.

Every one of those things was kind, and I knew what each one was.

Kaisa Mikkola paid what she owed.

She had paid three years of envelopes into a debt she thought was mine, to the dollar, and cried over it at her kitchen table.

Now she knew the debt was hers, and I was the creditor, and she was settling up.

I could take the eggs.

I couldn't take her laying herself down on the account as the payment.

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