Chapter 22: Her Name

Joost rode back to Holland the next morning, and I told myself I did not watch the road after him.

I watched Sanne's sworn statement instead, the copy the process server had left on the table.

Joost's name sat on the line for her daughter's father, in shaky blue ink.

I knew the girl was Pieter's, and I knew Sanne had signed it anyway.

A man who signs that is a father on paper, with a child's trust and a lawyer's bill attached.

Joost had read it standing up, said "I'll fight it," and left without a word about what it cost him.

The following Friday, at eight at night, the phone in Greet's kitchen rang.

It was Truus.

"Honey, are you sitting down?"

"I'm standing in Greet's kitchen."

"Then lean on something." Her voice dropped. "He asked me to ring you."

"Why?"

"Church starts in a minute, the whole club's here, and he wants you to hear it. I'm going to hold the phone up to the microphone."

"Truus. Don't."

"I'm doing it, honey."

The line went muffled, with a scraping and a rattle.

Then I heard the clubhouse.

I heard the old furnace and the chairs and a cough.

I heard forty men settling down, and my own heartbeat louder than all of it.

A gavel struck.

"Church," Joost said.

His voice came through the speaker, rough and carrying, a voice I had heard at that microphone a hundred times.

I gripped the counter.

"Before we start, I've got something to say," he said.

"I'll say it once, and I'll say it into this mic so nobody has to repeat it."

The room went silent.

"Three years ago, a woman sat in the second chair at this table."

He paused.

"She ran the winter run. She never missed a Sunday."

My throat closed.

"One Friday, the plate on that chair was changed.

"I stood at this mic and said another woman's name, and I did not say hers."

Somebody coughed.

Nobody else made a sound.

"She asked me to say it, in front of you. She asked me out loud, and I couldn't."

"Joost," I whispered, to nobody.

"I'm saying it now."

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