His Favorite Shirt novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: In the Lake

Thora's POV

Brielle stood at the microphone for a long moment without speaking.

I had never seen her face with nothing arranged on it.

"Posy is not Heath's daughter," she said.

The lawn did not gasp.

It went so quiet that I heard a halyard tick against a mast on the lake.

"Seven years ago I came to this lodge for a month and told a man I was leaving my husband. I wasn't. I went home in August." She was looking at the table, not at us. "In October I found out I was pregnant, and I counted the weeks, and I knew."

"Brielle," said Heath, very softly.

"I let you hold her in the hospital. I let you think she looked like your mother." Her voice cracked and recovered. "I could have told you, and I didn't, because you would have left, and I would have had nothing."

Heath's father stood with his arms at his sides.

"Go on," he said.

"The invitations were mine." Her hand shook against the stand. "I wanted the wedding on Thora's date because it was the one day I knew the lodge would be full of people who loved the Pembertons. I wanted Heath's name on her, in front of all of you, in a way nobody could undo."

She turned her head and found me.

"I signed his name on your studio door. I sat at a desk at night and practiced it three times. I'm sorry."

It was the first true thing she had ever said to me, and I did not want it.

"I'm sorry to Nolan," she said, and she looked at him, kneeling in the grass with Posy's basket. "I'm sorry to Posy most of all."

Posy, beside him, said in a clear little voice, "Mommy, why are you crying in the microphone?"

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