The Life I Chose novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Gala

The Foundation's mansion sits on Bellevue Avenue behind a wrought-iron gate.

Its ballroom had three chandeliers and a wall of windows over the black lawn.

Four hundred people in black tie.

Two huge screens stood on either side of the stage.

Both showed Marjorie cutting a ribbon at a children's hospital.

Daniel straightened his rented bow tie in the coat line for the fourth time.

"Stop touching it," I said.

"It's strangling me."

"It's a clip-on."

"It's an aggressive clip-on."

Ruthie was behind us in a green velvet dress she'd bought that afternoon and planned to return Monday with the tags tucked in.

"Nobody spill anything on me," she said. "This dress is a loan from Nordstrom."

We weren't on the guest list.

Holt's father had walked us in the side door himself.

Heads turned all the way across the ballroom.

I heard frightening twice before we reached our table.

Table one was at the foot of the stage.

Holt was already there, in a tuxedo, with a glass of scotch.

Kendall was at the far end of it, in a wheelchair, in a loose black dress with a blanket over her knees.

Her doctor had given her one hour sitting up.

Her father had promised to have her back in bed by ten.

Holt looked at her, and then at me, and stood up so fast his chair hit the table behind him.

"Dad. What are they doing here?"

"They're my guests," his father said. "Sit down."

At eight, the lights went down.

Marjorie walked up the steps to the podium in midnight blue silk and her pearls.

A little microphone was clipped to her neckline so she wouldn't have to hold one.

"Friends," she said, and four hundred people settled. "It has been a difficult autumn for my family."

A soft murmur of sympathy.

"You've read things. You've watched things. I won't dignify any of it. I'll only say that our family has always believed in grace, and privacy, and the healing power of..."

Holt's father stood up from table one.

He walked up the stage steps.

Marjorie stopped speaking.

"Thank you, my dear," he said, and took the podium microphone out of its stand. "I'm on this board. I'd like a few minutes."

"This isn't the time."

"It's exactly the time."

He turned to the room.

"Five weeks ago," he said, "my family put out a statement saying the woman my son was going to marry was unwell, and that she had misunderstood him. My wife wrote that statement. It was a lie. Margo Kinsale was perfectly well, and she understood him exactly. I'd like her to come up here."

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