The Mistress in the Room novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Baby Pictures

I wrote back from the cabin floor with salt still in my hair.

Yes, I texted. Seat her near the back, with a clear aisle, in case the baby cries.

Hannah sent a row of hearts and then: Thank you.

By four that afternoon the chairs on the lawn were full.

The lake lay flat and blue behind the arch of white tulips, and a ferry crossed the horizon.

Evan stood at the edge of the grass in a gray suit, waiting for me.

He had shaved twice, and there was a nick on his chin.

"You look nervous," I said.

"I walked a seventy-foot ferry into a gale once. This is worse."

"It's just the aisle."

"It's the aisle with two hundred people watching."

"You've done that before."

"Not with you."

I took his arm.

The quartet began, and every head on the lawn turned.

We walked the aisle slowly, and I felt his arm steady under my hand.

I saw faces I had known for thirty years.

The neighbor who had lifted her wineglass in her bathrobe was in the third row, in a hat.

The senior partner sat on the aisle with his wife.

Hannah's three old friends were not there, and no one had asked after them.

Near the back, in the last row, sat a woman in a pale green dress with a baby on her lap.

He was eight weeks old, with a fuzz of auburn hair, and he was asleep.

Lydia met my eyes across the rows.

I nodded to her once.

She nodded back, and she looked down at her son.

That was all. It was enough for the afternoon.

Evan seated me in the front row on the left, kissed my cheek in front of everyone and sat down beside me.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Mistress in the Room from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.