Chapter 7: The Reading Fund Luncheon

Gabriel told me the rest in his kitchen at midnight, standing up, with the lights off.

He had driven my father to a gray office building downtown the day before he died.

Papa could barely walk. He had asked Gabriel to wait in the truck.

When he came out he was the color of paper.

He had said one thing, in the passenger seat, with his eyes shut.

"Rafael said it was safe."

That was all. Papa died the next night.

I did not cry. I wrote down the street name of the building on the back of my hand.

Then I asked Gabriel for one more thing, and he said yes before I finished asking.

On Thursday at noon I walked up the front path of my mother-in-law's house in Olmos Park.

I wore the navy suit I had worn to Papa's funeral.

Gabriel's truck waited at the curb. He had said he would not come in unless I called.

The Cordero Family Reading Fund held its quarterly luncheon in Marisol's dining room.

I had hosted it with her three times. I knew where the good china lived.

I walked in through the open front door without knocking.

Twenty women sat around two long tables, in pastel dresses and pearls.

Marisol stood at the head of the first table with a glass of iced tea and a small silver bell.

She saw me and the bell stopped halfway to her hand.

"Odette," she said. "We weren't expecting you, dear."

"I know."

"Are you unwell? Rafael said you were resting."

"Resting," I said. "That's a good word for it."

I walked to the middle of the room, where everyone could see me.

A hush went down the tables one chair at a time.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," I said. "I have something to read. It won't take long."

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