Five Hours a Year novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: What Donna Said
Leah's POV
The guard walked Desmond into the corridor with one hand loosely on his elbow.
My mother was standing in front of the water fountain.
She had stood up when the chair called the recess, and she had walked out ahead of everyone else, with her handbag on her arm.
She was waiting.
Desmond saw her and stopped.
The guard stopped too, because Frances had stepped into the corridor behind them and shut the door.
The partners crowded the doorway.
Alec stood beside me with a hand at the small of my back, and I felt him tense.
"Mrs. Stallworth," Desmond said.
His voice was smooth again.
He had found it somewhere between the courtroom and the water fountain.
"I'm so sorry about your husband. I would have said so at the service, but there was so much going on."
"You sent a wreath," my mother said.
"It was the least I could do."
"It was the biggest one in the church." She tilted her head. "My sister counted the lilies. She said it must have cost more than the casket."
"Donna..."
"Mrs. Stallworth."
"Mrs. Stallworth, I want you to know, I'd never have..."
"My husband died on a Tuesday," my mother said, in the voice she had used for thirty years on children who lied. "He had a heart that was tired, and a daughter who was tired, and a friend who flew all night to hold me up. And you sent a text to my son-in-law during the second hymn."
Desmond said nothing.
"Do you know what he said, my husband, the last time he spoke about you? He said, 'That man smiles like he's counting.'" She shifted the handbag on her arm. "I told him he was unkind."
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