Riot novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Last Sunday Dinner

Honor kissed my cheek on the front steps on Sunday, and I let her.

It was the hardest thing I had ever done with my face.

"You look wonderful, dear," she said. "Blooming. Come sit by me."

Bex walked in behind me with her jaw set and her hands in her coat pockets.

The table held twenty this time.

The uncles were there, and the board members' wives in their good pearls.

Sabine sat at Rhys's right, in white, with her hair in a sleek twist.

Rhys sat at the head, in a dark suit, with a flat white box on the cloth beside his plate.

Honor did not look at the box.

She was telling a story about the garden, and she laughed in all the right places.

Rhys let her finish the soup.

Then he stood up and tapped his glass once with a spoon.

"Before the roast," he said, "I'd like to show my mother something."

Honor smiled up at him. "Ry, darling. Is it a present?"

"In a way."

He picked up the box and set it on the tablecloth in front of her, with the sticker facing her.

Nobody breathed.

"For Ry, from H," he read. "That's your handwriting."

"Of course it is. I send you that every month, because you never look after yourself."

"Open it."

"I'd rather not handle such a thing at the table."

"Then I will."

He slid out a foil packet and held it up to the chandelier.

A speck of light showed through the middle.

"Every one has a hole," he said. "Twelve of twelve."

The silence stretched.

Then an uncle laughed, uneasily.

"Defective," he said. "These things happen, son."

"With a needle," Rhys said. "Once in each packet, in the same place, by a woman who sat at my counter and did it for three years."

Honor put her hand to her pearls.

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