Chapter 6: The Quiet Retreat

The Merrick Foundation sent out its newsletter on Monday, and Margaret read it aloud in her flattest voice.

"Harrison and Lucy Merrick are enjoying a quiet retreat as they prepare for a family milestone."

She turned the page toward me.

"Rosalind Merrick says, 'We are all holding Lucy in our hearts.'"

She put the page down.

"A quiet retreat," she said. "You're in my attic eating soup."

"They've told two thousand donors I'm resting."

"Which is true."

"It's the way it's true."

I looked at the round window for a while.

The doctor had cleared me for one hour upright, with a chair and a driver and Margaret at my elbow.

"The foundation lunch is tomorrow," I said. "At the Langham. Every donor in the city will be there."

Margaret's eyebrows went up over her red glasses.

"You'd walk into that?"

"I'd walk into it slowly."

She sighed and went to find my good coat.

The ballroom held two hundred people and a hundred round tables, with white roses and a lectern with the foundation's gold seal.

Behind the lectern hung a banner of the Conrad Merrick Memorial Library at dusk, with its long curved roof lit from inside.

I looked at it once.

Then I looked at the floor and kept walking.

Heads turned as I came in.

I wore the navy wrap dress from our anniversary, let out at the side, with Margaret's arm under mine and my belly leading the way.

Constance saw me first.

She was at the head table in lavender silk, and her smile did not move at all.

Rosalind sat beside her, in cream, with a little gold pin of the library on her collar.

Harrison was at the lectern, mid-sentence, thanking sponsors.

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