Chapter 22: Stand When She Stands

The Les Douze Christmas party was held every year in the ballroom of a club on the harbor.

The tree in the front hall was three stories tall.

I had been to seven of them. At every one I had stood by the coat check and refilled the gravy boat.

This year I walked in through the front doors in a long green dress that Mireille had picked.

Under it my stomach showed plainly now. I was nineteen weeks along.

Rémy had come down from the island that morning.

He stood at my left, in a dark suit.

Mireille stood at my right.

"Ready?" she said.

"No."

"Good," said Mireille. "Neither am I."

Inside, the long table was set for fifty.

The wives sat on the left side.

The seat beside me was open, and nobody had been asked to leave it that way.

Eleanor sat at the head in black velvet. Preston sat at the foot, in the plain brown coat.

The husbands sat in a clump on the far side, and none of them would look at me.

Solène arrived last.

She was five months along, and she wore red.

Her hair was done, her mouth was red too, and she came through the door with her head high.

Her mother was not with her.

She walked the full length of the room and stopped at her chair at the center of the table.

The husbands shifted.

I watched it happen. It was a reflex, the kind a body keeps for years.

Three of them started to rise.

Solène lifted her glass of water, and tapped it with a spoon.

"Mes amis," she said. "Mes chers amis."

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