Chapter 17: The Gala

I wore the navy dress to the gala, because it was the first thing anyone had bought me that wasn't a favor.

Silvan wore a black suit that fit him, and he carried a canvas tote bag against his hip.

It held a shoebox.

The ballroom at the Shoreline Club had been done in white roses and candles, with round tables for three hundred donors.

A huge screen hung behind the podium.

The Lila Sanborn Foundation was printed on every napkin.

A woman at the next table recognized me from the viral video and looked away too fast.

Nobody stopped us at the door.

Adelaide wanted me inside.

"She's got an empty chair for me," I said. "Table one."

"Then we'll sit in it," Silvan said.

We sat.

Poppy was already there, across the room, in a white dress with a satin sash, standing on the dais beside her grandmother's chair.

She saw me.

Her whole face lit, and then somebody's hand came down on her shoulder and it went out.

Rhett stood at the back of the room, near the kitchen doors, in a dark suit, with a drink he wasn't drinking.

He didn't come over.

Dinner took an hour and a half, and I ate none of it.

At nine, Adelaide rose and went to the podium in a long gray gown with her hair in its perfect twist.

She waited for the room to quiet, and it did.

"Four years ago, this foundation was born from my daughter-in-law's last wish," she said. "That no child should lack the love she gave her own."

The room made a soft sound of sympathy.

"Tonight I have to speak about something painful, because the foundation's name must never be used as a weapon against my family."

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