They Gave Me a Monthly Allowance, So I Took Back My Building novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The First Toast
Caterina's POV
The harvest dinner was held under the olive tree, in the courtyard of my father's house.
Nobody had to move the tables. The club's crew had left the long boards stacked in the barn, and the foreman's men carried them out on Friday morning and set them in rows beneath the strings of lights.
Two hundred people came.
Every family from the barrel hall sat at them. The sales director sat beside the old white-haired buyer, and the operations manager sat next to the young finance clerk, who had been given a place of honor and was trying not to look at it.
My aunt sat near the head of the main table, in a good grey dress, with her shawl folded on her knees.
I had put her there myself, one seat down from mine.
She hadn't said a word all evening. She watched me, and she kept her hands folded.
At the far end of the second table sat a small old woman in a black wool coat, with a large man in a three-piece suit beside her.
He looked miserable in it.
He had looked at me exactly once when he arrived, and then he had looked at his plate.
The programme on every place setting had one name on it, in my father's old typeface.
Caterina Bellandi, it said. Host.
The sales director rapped on his glass with a spoon.
I stood up.
The courtyard went quiet in waves, table by table.
"Thank you for coming," I said.
"Most of you know how this valley has looked at me for the last twelve years. The girl in Milan, who comes home for two weeks and doesn't ask questions."
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