Chapter 22: The Door

Claire's POV

Beatrice hung my show in three days.

She took down every other painting in the gallery, and the whole ground floor was mine.

The posters said The Eleven Years in black letters, and under that, Paintings by Claire Penhallow Rudd.

On Saturday night the line ran out the door and down the block.

I stood at the back near the stairs in a cream dress, holding my aunt's hand.

I had worn cream once before, at a ballroom.

"Don't cry," Beatrice said. "You'll ruin the show."

"I'm not crying."

"Your chin is."

The first guests I recognized were the women of the Foundation.

Eleven of them came in together, in good coats, with their faces carefully arranged.

They had sat on a marble bench in a courthouse hallway and watched my mother lose.

Now they wanted to be seen at my opening.

The woman in front stopped in front of me.

"Claire, darling. We always knew you were extraordinary."

"Did you?" I said.

Her smile faltered.

"You asked me to leave your table at the Tull lunch," I said. "I remember the napkin you put over your plate."

Nobody spoke.

Ethan, at my shoulder in his dark suit, did not say a word, and he did not need to.

"Please go and look at the paintings," I said. "They're good. There's a donation box by the door for the legal clinic on Mercer Street."

The woman opened her handbag with fingers that were not quite steady.

She put in a check, and so did the rest.

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