The Beast on Her Leash novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Toast

For a week I did not ask him anything.

I knew it was cowardice, and I knew it was also sense.

Sam had told me twice on the phone, in his flat detective voice, not to guess out loud.

"If you're wrong, you've shown your hand. If you're right, you've shown a scared man you know."

So I watched Bram instead.

I watched him sleep with one arm over Moose.

I watched him flinch when a siren went by.

On the Saturday of the supper, I watched him practice a toast in the boathouse mirror.

He stood with his hands behind his back.

"To my aunt, who," he began, and stopped.

"Who what?"

"I don't know. Who is nice."

"She's not nice. She's terrifying."

"She's terrifying."

"Say that."

He looked horrified.

"Say the true thing. Short. Don't read it."

He swallowed, and I held up my hand flat on the table.

"Not for you," I said. "That's for me. I'm just reminding myself I'm not supposed to fix it."

That was the first time he really laughed.

Fern held her supper for the hospital donors every October in the big house.

It had thirty guests, three kinds of ham, and a rule against costumes.

Lyle arrived late, with Pauline, and kissed his aunt's cheek.

He smiled at me across the room.

I smiled back.

At eight o'clock, Fern rapped a spoon against her water glass.

"My nephew Bram would like to say a few words," she announced. "Be kind. He's nervous."

"I'm not," Bram said.

The room laughed.

He stood, tall and awkward, at the head of the long table.

He wore the navy jacket that I had finally had let out at the shoulders.

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