Chapter 7: The Luckiest Man in Ohio

On Friday night I put on the only dress I owned that wasn't for a funeral.

It was dark green, plain, and four years old.

The copy of the certificate was folded in my purse, behind my wallet.

Silvan waited at the bottom of the stairs.

He wore a charcoal suit and no tie, and he looked at the dress and then at the carpet.

"Rule two," he said. "I'm going to stand very close to you at this table."

"That's not touching."

"It's the nearest thing I can offer."

I didn't tell him that I was glad.

At five to seven the doorbell rang, and Deborah shouted from the kitchen that she was not the butler.

Lydia came in first with a bottle of wine in each hand and her cream coat open.

She was prettier than her photo, blonde and bright and out of breath, and she hugged me before I could say my name.

"You're real," she said. "You're really real. He's been keeping you a secret, I'm furious."

"He's been keeping me a week."

"A week is long enough for him to hide a person."

She kissed her brother's cheek, and he let her.

Then Spencer came through the door behind her, carrying a pie.

He saw me over her shoulder.

For half a second his whole face went slack.

Then he smiled, and it was the old easy smile I had seen across the breakfast table for two years.

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