Chapter 17: The Luncheon

The petition said I was unfit because I had screamed in public.

My lawyer read the whole petition standing at the foot of my hospital bed, and he laughed once, short and ugly.

"She attached the parade video," he said. "The gala video. A nurse's note from your collapse."

He turned the page.

"She wants a psychiatric evaluation before you take your daughter home."

"Can she get it?"

"Judges don't love it when a grandmother does this. But she has the committee wives ready to swear you were erratic."

"Which wives?"

He handed me a page of names.

Twenty-two women had signed affidavits saying I was unstable, unkind and unfit.

I knew every one of them.

I had stood behind them at ten years of team parties while they talked past my shoulder.

One had told me my dress was "brave."

One had moved my name card to the end of the table every year.

One had said, at Ty's last birthday, that it was a shame some women didn't have anything to give a man.

"They think I'm alone," I said.

"Are you?"

"No. I'm out of here Thursday, and the Committee has its luncheon at noon."

The Wives and Families Committee held its spring luncheon in the ballroom of the Lakeshore Club.

A hundred and forty women sat at round tables facing a podium and a screen.

I came in at 12:20, seven days after my daughter was born, in a navy dress I had borrowed from Pete's girlfriend.

Pete walked at my back and my lawyer walked beside me.

I had no cameras.

I had asked the owner's wife herself, in a three-line note, and she had written back: Come.

The room noticed me one table at a time.

Forks stopped.

At the podium, Bernadette looked up, and her smile landed a half second late.

"Lena," she said. "How lovely. You should be resting."

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