He Demanded I Deny His Daughter, So I Walked Away novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Parents' Night

The mother in the gray coat had texted me on Tuesday.

She had found the boatyard's number on its website, and her message was short.

Parents' meeting, Wednesday, seven, the gym. They won't say your name unless you're standing there.

So on Wednesday night I stood outside the gym doors at Poppy's school, in the navy dress, with the folded page from Rhett in my pocket.

Silvan waited beside me.

"I'll sit at the back," he said. "I won't say a word unless you want me to."

"I don't."

"Then you won't hear one."

Inside, eighty parents sat on folding chairs under the basketball hoops.

The head of school stood at a lectern with a printed agenda, and her voice was pitched very carefully.

"Item two is the Lila Sanborn Foundation's gift toward the new playground," she said. "I'd like to note that the family has also withdrawn one student, and I can't comment further."

"Why not?" the gray-coated mother said, from the third row, without standing.

"It's a private family matter."

"Is it private?" a father said. "There's a video of that child on my phone."

"Please, this is not the forum."

"Then where is?"

The mother in the gray coat turned around in her chair and found me in the doorway.

"Rochelle," she said, loud enough for the whole gym. "Come up."

Eighty heads turned.

I felt my knees go, and I walked up the center aisle anyway.

I had spent four years standing at the edge of the school gate, in the second row of mothers, waiting to be told I could come closer.

The head of school stepped aside from the lectern and gave me a small, helpless nod.

I put my hands on the wood.

"My name is Rochelle Copley," I said. "Most of you know me as Poppy Sanborn's nanny. I wasn't her nanny on the day I left that wedding. I was supposed to be her stepmother."

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