Chapter 22: The Gala

Thea's POV

"Leave the list as it is," I had told Harrison in the hall that Saturday morning. "Let her have her seat."

In April, I walked into the Foundation's anniversary gala at thirty-five weeks, in a dark green gown that Eileen had let out twice.

Table one was already full.

Celia sat at the host's right hand in pale silver, with her honey hair in a low twist.

Caleb stood beside her chair in a tiny navy suit, holding her fingers, while a photographer asked them to look this way.

She had made sure the whole room would see her with the boy.

I did not go to table one.

My card was at table nine, near the back, beside the sound desk.

I had asked for it.

Eileen sat beside me in a red dress, eating my dessert as well as her own.

At the desk, a young man with a headset looked up when I set the gray phone down in front of him.

"It's already loaded," I said. "Mrs. Rutherford will tell you when."

"Yes, ma'am."

Harrison found me at the edge of the dance floor.

He had moved my name card twice, and I had moved it back twice.

"You're not at my table," he said quietly.

"No."

"You're going to do whatever you're going to do."

"Yes."

"Then do it from where you can reach the door fast," he said. "You're carrying a person."

I put my hand on his lapel, only for a second.

"Sit with your son," I said.

He went.

After the salmon, Harriet stood at the podium on her cane.

She had asked to give the toast, and no one had dared to say no.

"Fifty years of this Foundation," she said, slowly, in the bad-day voice that made the room lean in.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Composure After Divorce Became His Greatest Torment from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.