The Son Who Returned to Expose Their Shame novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Barre

The studio smelled like hairspray and juice boxes.

Somebody had strung pink crepe paper along the barre.

Folding chairs filled the room in four crooked rows, and every one was taken.

Mothers. Fathers holding phones up. A grandfather asleep in the back with a program on his chest.

Gran had the aisle seat in the front row.

She'd gotten there forty minutes early and told a young father it was reserved for the elderly.

Callie sat next to her with a bouquet of grocery-store carnations.

Annie's mother sat on the other side of Callie, holding her purse with both hands.

I stood by the door.

"Sit down," Gran hissed at me. "You're blocking the snacks."

"I'm fine."

"You're tall. Nobody can see over you. Sit on the floor like a gentleman."

I sat on the floor.

Eight little girls in pink tutus came out from behind a curtain that was really a shower curtain on a rod.

The one with purple socks had refused to give up the purple socks.

She wore them over her tights, and nobody had been able to stop her.

Annie came out last and sat in her straight chair at the side, with her cane across her knees.

She was in black, a simple practice dress, her hair in a tight knot.

She looked across the room and found me on the floor and raised one eyebrow.

I raised one back.

"First position," she said to the girls, and the music started.

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