Chapter 4: A Seat at the Table

Beatrice Rooke held her dinner at seven.

Ansel came to the guest house door at ten to, in a dark sweater, with his bandaged hand shoved in his pocket.

"She'll want you there," he said.

"Why would she want me anywhere?"

"So she can look at you."

"That's a terrible reason."

"It's the only one she has," he said, and held the door.

The Rooke house stood on the hill above the wharf, white and square, with every window lit.

The dining room had a table for twelve.

There were two aunts in good wool, a bank president with his daughter, and an empty chair at Ansel's right.

The place card in front of it read Cora.

Someone had not taken it away.

"Sit, Wynne," Beatrice said from the head of the table. "That's the chair she was supposed to have."

I looked at Ansel.

His face gave me nothing.

I sat.

Nobody ate the soup.

"I hope you'll forgive the empty seat at the other end," Beatrice said to the table. "We had expected a bride."

"We have a sister of the bride instead, which is the next best thing."

One of the aunts made a small uncomfortable sound.

"Mother," Ansel said.

"I'm only being hospitable. She's been so helpful all day."

She lifted her glass.

"To the replacement."

Nobody drank.

The bank president's daughter stared into her wine with the face of someone who wished the floor would open.

My cheek still stung from the morning.

I stood up, and my chair scraped.

I picked up my water glass, because I wasn't going to have a drink at that table.

"To the necklace," I said. "Wherever it is."

"I hope it turns up in the last place anyone would look."

"Sometimes things you're certain you've got turn out to be somewhere else."

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