Double Contract Love novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Copper Beech

The Conservancy's Autumn Walk was held every year under the big copper beech at the top of Cherokee Park.

My father used to bring me when I was small, and let me stand in the hollow of its roots.

By ten on Tuesday morning, a hundred and twenty donors in good coats stood on the lawn drinking cider from paper cups.

Gwen stood on a little wooden platform with a microphone, in a camel coat and pearls.

I had never seen her look so comfortable.

Dal had told me not to come.

"This is my contract," he said at breakfast. "I'll call the chairman myself."

"It's my stepmother."

"It's my business."

"It's our marriage," I said. "She did this because you married me. I'm not hiding at home."

He had looked at me a long moment, and then he drove me.

We walked up the hill together past the folding tables and the tree-planting banner.

Dal's own crew was there, in orange vests, standing in a line at the back with their arms folded.

Nobody had told them to leave, and nobody had told them to work.

Gwen saw me coming and her smile didn't move.

"And we are so grateful," she was saying, "to all of you who keep these old giants standing. Walter Thornbury gave his whole heart to this park."

I stepped up onto the platform without asking.

A murmur went through the crowd.

"Gwen," I said. "Hello."

"Lillian, dear, this isn't the time."

"I think it is."

I took the microphone out of her hand.

It was becoming a habit.

"Good morning," I said to a hundred and twenty faces. "I'm Walter Thornbury's daughter."

Several people nodded.

I saw an old man in a tweed cap near the front, leaning on a cane, watching me closely.

"My father planted that tree behind me, with Dalton Yarbrough's crew, the year I was born."

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