Chapter 23: The Party at the Lake House

By six o'clock the house was full.

I hadn't planned a party, and I'd said so twice to Birdie.

"It isn't a party," Birdie said, carrying in a roaster pan wrapped in towels. "It's supper, and it happens to be for forty."

"Birdie."

"The lodge has the date booked and nobody to spend it on. I'd rather spend it here."

She set the pan on my grandmother's table and lifted the lid.

The kitchen filled with the smell of beef and onions.

By seven there were eleven casseroles on the counter, and I stopped counting the people.

The man in the plaid coat had brought a sheet cake with a lake drawn on it in blue icing.

The nurse had brought a pie and a bottle of wine and would not let me thank her.

The girl from the bait counter came in late with her coat buttoned right for once.

She stood by the door until I walked over and took it from her.

"They said I probably won't go to jail," she whispered.

"Good."

"They said I have to talk to a lot of people."

"You'll be good at it. You've been practicing."

She laughed, startled, and some of the tightness went out of her shoulders.

Cal had hung the grandmother's portrait over the mantel with its new glass.

The young woman in the high collar laughed at whoever was out of the picture.

Nobody in the room had to be told who she was.

Carl's father had spent the afternoon on my porch with a drill, replacing the split rail he'd heard about from Birdie.

He did not ask permission, and he did not speak to me about Rupert or Marcy.

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