Chapter 20: Sober

Conway put the key in his pocket and walked the length of the table.

He did it unhurriedly, with his hands loose at his sides, and the forty people he passed leaned out of his way.

"Mother has told you a story about my father," he said. "It's a sad story. It has nothing to do with me."

Lucy had her phone out already.

Her thumb was shaking on the screen.

"Sit down, Jean," Conway said. "It's been a hard few weeks. You've gotten confused."

"I'm not confused."

"You're going to come home with me tonight. In front of everyone, so they'll all remember how it was."

"I have a restraining order."

"You have a piece of paper." He smiled. "And you have forty witnesses who can't remember a thing."

He was right about the paper.

He was only wrong about the room.

I felt Nate shift behind me, and I put my hand back without looking and found his sleeve.

"Wait," I whispered.

Conway stopped an arm's length from me.

He looked me over from my hair to my shoes.

Then he reached out and took my wrist.

His fingers closed hard over the bones.

My whole body went rigid.

For one second I was in the kitchen again with the counter at my back.

"Let go of her," Diane said.

She had crossed the room.

She stood between us, small and gray and trembling, with her pearls swinging.

"Conway. Enough. Let her go."

He looked down at his mother.

"Move, Mother."

"No."

"I said move."

He shoved her with his free hand.

It was a short, casual push, the kind you give a door.

Diane went sideways into the sideboard and the three-tiered cake rocked and fell, sugar roses and all, onto the floor.

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