They Toasted the Happy Couple, So I Bought the Groom novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: Whose Name

I walked back up the dock with my hands steady and my heart going like a hammer.

On the lawn the club was gathering for the fireworks toast.

Every year at nine the commodore made a speech, and every year my father gave the second toast, because he'd given the club its new seawall.

Clive had arrived while I was on the dock.

He stood at the edge of the family table in a white shirt, a glass in his hand he wasn't drinking.

Marigold had already found him. She was tucked under his arm, laughing up at him, the video put away.

He saw me come up the lawn.

Something in my face made him straighten.

The commodore tapped his glass.

"Friends. Neighbors. Gerald, get up here."

My father rose to applause and took the little microphone.

"Another year," he said. "Another season on the water. And this year I'm especially grateful, because this spring I gave away a daughter and gained a son."

He raised his glass toward Clive.

The terrace raised theirs.

"And because," my father said, "I gave my girl and her husband a home. Briarwood. Where she grew up. Where I hope my grandchildren will."

Applause.

I lifted my hand.

It wasn't a big gesture. A director, in navy, by the hydrangeas, lifting a hand at a toast.

My father saw it. He couldn't pretend he hadn't. Two hundred people saw him see it.

"Iris," he said, all warmth. "Something to add?"

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