He Left Me to Die. Now I'll Survive Without Him! novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Table

Hank built the table out of barn doors and sawhorses.

It ran the length of the farmhouse kitchen and out through the mudroom, and twenty people sat at it, Shelby among them, close to Cody.

There was venison stew, and canned peaches, and a pan of cornbread the trucker had made from a recipe he swore was his grandmother's.

"It's dry," Hank said.

"It's perfect," said the woman with the toddler.

"It's a brick."

"It's my brick," the trucker said, and the whole table laughed.

I stood at the stove with the ladle and watched them.

A week ago they had been strangers on a bus.

Now a girl of sixteen was teaching Cody a card game, and two men argued about whether the spring would freeze, and Shelby was passing bowls down the far end without anyone telling her to.

We had voted that afternoon.

Fort McCoy had a gate and a screening line and a promise, and we had a ridge, a spring, and a wall of dirt.

It was thirty to zero, with Hank abstaining so he could say he had.

We were staying.

Eli sat at the head, because the table had no head and he'd made one by being large.

Cody climbed into the chair beside him with his plate and looked at the bandage on Eli's arm.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

"Not much."

"Does it hurt more than mine?"

"Less. I'm bigger."

Cody put his fork down.

"Eli," he said. "Can I ask you something?"

The table quieted, a little.

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