Day Seven I Signed It novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Other Cup

My mother did not go to the coffee urn.

She walked down the aisle of her own church, past her friends and the pastor and me.

She stopped at the last pew.

"Miss Roche," she said.

"Mrs. Tavish."

"I think we'd better have tea."

They rode in my mother's car, the two of them.

Gavin and I followed in mine, and neither of us said a word.

At the house my mother put the kettle on before she took off her coat.

She set out the good cups, the white ones with the gold rim.

They had come out for my father's funeral and not before.

She put a blue mug in front of the empty chair at the head of the table.

Then she looked at it and took it away.

"That was his," she said. "I don't know why I keep it out."

Gavin's mother sat down in the chair my mother pointed to.

She kept her coat on and her handbag on her knees.

"I'd like Colin to stay," Joan said. "And your son, if you want him."

"They can stand in the doorway and say nothing."

We stood in the doorway.

The kettle clicked off, and my mother poured, and for a while the only sound was the spoon.

"I'll say what I came to say," Gavin's mother said at last.

Her voice was low and hoarse, a voice that had cleaned offices at night.

"I never wanted your husband's money, Mrs. Tavish."

"I wanted a father for my boy, and I took the check because I couldn't get the other."

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