Why Cry When You Made Me Leave? novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Last Door
My mother had a gold ring in her palm, and my sister held a bank envelope in both hands.
Neither of them said anything until the cook rolled her chair between us.
"Well?" the cook said.
"Say what you came to say."
Ines went down on her knees on the wet boards of Pier One, in her good grey coat, in front of two hundred dock workers.
I had never seen her kneel to anyone, not even in church.
"I ate at the Don's table for thirty-one years," she said.
"I never once asked who cooked it."
She put the wedding ring in the old woman's lap, on top of the frying pan.
"It's the only thing I have that's mine."
"It should buy a stove."
The cook looked at it for a while.
"It will buy two," she said.
"Get up, you'll ruin your stockings."
Ines didn't get up.
Fiorella stepped forward with the envelope.
"This is everything Papa ever put in my name," she said.
"Two hundred and twelve thousand dollars."
"I went to the bank at eight this morning and closed it."
"It belongs to the Quay."
Her hands were shaking.
"I don't have anything else to give you, Ema."
"I don't know how to be anybody without being yours."
I took the envelope.
"I'm not taking you in," I said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Why Cry When You Made Me Leave? are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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