I Chose a New Life novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Rhoda's Table

Rhoda cooked for six on Sunday night, and there were four of us.

"Nobody is leaving this table hungry," she said, setting down two roast chickens on a platter. "That's the only rule in my house."

"There's a second rule," Cliff said. "The dog."

"The dog is not allowed in the dining room."

The dog was lying under Roxana's chair.

He was a big, gray, slobbering mutt who belonged to the inn, and he had followed Cliff up the porch steps, walked past all of us, and gone straight to the woman with the new sweatshirt.

Roxana looked down at him.

"Is he allowed?" she asked.

"No," Rhoda said.

"He put his head on my foot."

"Then he's allowed," Rhoda said, and cut her an extra-large slice.

I sat across from Cliff and kept my knee against his under the table, where nobody could see.

He kept his knee exactly where it was.

We ate.

It was the first meal in two weeks that I tasted.

Rhoda told the story of the winter she had locked herself in the inn's walk-in freezer with a Lutheran bishop.

Cliff told the story of the summer he had hauled a grand piano to Gull Island on the ferry, and the piano had rolled.

"All the way off the ramp," he said.

"Into the lake?" Roxana asked.

"Into the lake. The man who owned it waved from the dock and said, 'It was out of tune anyway.'"

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