Chapter 5: Sunday Dinner

I set the mattress down on the stairs.

"Where I couldn't see," I said. "That's the part you're proud of."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know exactly what you meant."

I carried the mattress to the truck and I did not look back up at the window, where Delilah was still crying, and the baby with her.

The crib went into my grandmother's spare room, in pieces, and I did not put it together.

On Sunday, I put on my good black sweater and drove to the clubhouse by myself.

I arrived at ten minutes to four.

The long table was set for forty, with paper plates and the big aluminum trays of Connie's pot roast.

Vernon sat at the head of it, where he had sat for thirty years, and the whole room went quiet when I walked in.

I didn't take a seat.

I stood at the foot of the table with my hands on the back of a chair.

"I want to ask one question," I said. "Then I'll go."

"Diana," Vernon said, not unkindly. "Sit and eat."

"Who knew?"

Nobody moved.

At the end of the table a man with a gray ponytail turned his fork over and looked at the bottom of it.

"I don't mean who was told this week," I said. "I mean who knew while I was here eating your pot roast."

Vernon put both hands flat on the cloth.

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