Chapter 14: Twelve Hands

The doctor held out the order with a polite little nod.

Gavin took it out of his hand and read it.

"This is a physician's request on your own letterhead," he said. "There's no judge's name on it."

"It's sufficient for a patient in my care."

"She isn't in your care. She's sitting at my father's table, eating soup."

"Gavin," Richard said.

"Sit down, Father."

"I will not."

"Then stay on your feet and watch."

Gavin folded the order in half and put it in his breast pocket.

The two men in dark jackets looked at Richard.

Richard did not look at them.

At the far end of the table, a heavy man in a gray suit pushed back his chair and stood.

He was one of the ones who had put his hand flat on the books.

"I'd like to see Mrs. Brennan to her car," he said.

"Sit down," Richard said.

"No, I don't think I will."

The woman in pearls stood too.

Then a man near the door, the one who had looked at the floor.

Then four more, in a rustle of napkins and chair legs, until only one board member was still seated, and he was staring into his wine.

The two men in dark jackets stepped back from my mother's chair.

I helped her up.

She was lighter than I remembered, and she held my arm with a grip I hadn't felt in years.

"Mrs. Brennan," the woman in pearls said. "I'm so sorry for what was done to you."

"It was done to my husband," my mother said. "But thank you."

At the door she stopped and turned.

Richard stood at the head of his table with his cane planted and candlelight on his silver hair.

"Joan," he said. "I paid for nine years of your life."

"You paid for nine years of my silence," my mother said. "I'm giving it back."

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