Chapter 19: Between the Bread and the Butter

Hayes's POV

My mother flew back to Austin on Friday morning, and she did not tell me why.

She called from the airport and said, "Where is Philippa's patron lunch?"

"How do you know about a lunch?"

"Rory," she said. "Where?"

It was at one o'clock in the dining room of a private club on Congress.

Twelve people sat at a long table with white linen and a wall of windows behind them.

The foundation chair was there, the white-haired man who had been about to hand Philippa a plaque.

So were two of her oldest donors, a retired judge and his wife, and the new promoter in his grey suit.

Her manager sat at Philippa's left hand, with a leather folder in front of him.

Philippa sat at the head in cream wool, smiling.

I stood at the back, beside the coat check, in my one good suit.

I had promised my mother I would say nothing.

I had not promised to look away.

She came through the double doors at five past one.

She wore the navy wool coat and her pearl studs, and she carried a large envelope under her arm.

The maître d' started toward her, and she shook her head, and he stopped.

She walked the length of the room.

Philippa saw her at the third table and put down her fork.

"Dorothea," she said warmly. "What a lovely surprise. Have you come to apologize?"

"I've come to pay for lunch," my mother said.

She stopped at the head of the table.

She took a sheet of paper out of the envelope.

She laid it on the linen in front of Philippa's plate, between the bread basket and the butter dish.

"I thought you'd remember where I put the last one," she said.

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