Not Every Home Is Meant to Be Returned To novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Price of a Daughter

"Give me that book," my mother said.

She crossed the credit union lobby in her good heels, and every head at the teller windows turned.

"It's mine, Hazel. It's private. You had no right to open my box."

"Dad is on the box," I said. "He opened it."

She stared at my father.

He stood beside me with his arms down and did not look away.

"Russell," she said. "What have you done?"

"I handed the key over, Marjorie."

For a second her whole face was open, and what I saw there was not guilt. It was rage that she had been caught.

Then she remembered the tellers and lowered her voice.

"We'll discuss this at home."

"Yes," I said. "Tonight. Dinner at six at Alder Lane, at the dining room table. Everyone's coming, including your sister and my great-uncle."

"You can't invite people to my table."

"It's my table."

I walked out past her with the book under my arm.

At six o'clock the dining room held eight people.

Kenzie's mom had cooked a roast and gone home. The great-uncle sat at one end with his cane across his knees, and my aunt had driven in from Toledo to sit beside him.

Lacey sat on my right and Dad on my left.

My mother took the chair at the far end with her handbag in her lap.

Maisie was upstairs asleep, and Kenzie sat with her on the landing, with her phone in her hand in case we needed her.

I put the green book on the table and opened it.

"I'm going to read a few lines," I said. "I'll be quick. Everyone here is going to hear them."

"Hazel, don't do this," Mom said.

"Food, eleven dollars. Clothing, secondhand, eighteen. Room, four hundred."

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