He Held Her Son the Night I Lost Ours novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Board Lunch

On Thursday the pavilion was set with forty round tables and one long head table under the glass.

The foundation board sat down to chicken and white wine, and Tara stood to speak before anyone had finished their salad.

She wore black.

She had one hand on her heart and a small photo of Ollie in the other.

"I'm not here to talk about anyone's mistakes," she began, and her voice shook exactly once. "I'm here because I know what it is to lose someone and have the world judge how you grieve."

Three women at the front table were already dabbing their eyes.

Clark sat next to her with his head down.

He had been seated there as her support.

I stood at the back, beside a pillar and a coffee urn, with Rafe a step behind me.

"You don't have to do this," he said, very low.

"Yes, I do."

"Then I'm here."

"I know," I said, and it surprised me how easily it came out.

Tara finished to real applause.

The foundation chair thanked her warmly.

Then the chair looked down the length of the hall and found me.

"Ms. Prescott, you have five minutes on the library roof. After that, the board will vote."

I walked to the front.

It was a long walk.

I did the roof in two minutes, with the model on a table and my hands steady.

Nobody asked a question.

They were all looking at the woman they had watched scream at a widow.

"I have one more thing," I said. "It's a video."

Rafe had already lowered the screen at the end of the pavilion.

"The studio lobby has a camera over the front desk," I said. "Our insurer insists on it. It records sound. Tara filmed that Monday from behind Clark's shoulder. This is the same Monday morning, from the first second to the last."

I pressed the button.

Tara's chair scraped.

The film ran four minutes, in gray, with a clock in the corner.

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