Chapter 18: On His Knees

The church stood on a hill in Lake Oswego, white wood and a green copper steeple.

Mass let out at eleven.

I stood at the bottom of the front steps in a navy dress and flat shoes.

I did not know what the morning would need from my feet.

The parish came out in ones and twos, in good coats, shaking the priest's hand.

Nobody noticed me at first.

Then Marlene came out between two women her age, with her pearls and her cane, and she saw me, and her whole face lit.

"There she is," she said, loudly. "Oh, thank God."

The women turned.

I watched my mother-in-law work the crowd.

She touched her chest, and the heads came around.

By the time Nolan stepped out through the double doors behind her, forty people were looking at me.

He had dressed for it.

Dark suit, a white shirt with no tie, and his eyes red from either crying or something else.

He came down the steps slowly.

He stopped three steps above me, and then he got down on one knee on the stone.

A murmur went through the crowd.

"Ruby," he said.

His voice carried.

He had a good voice for a room, and he knew it.

"I did something terrible. I hurt the best person I've ever known, and I did it because I was a coward."

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