He Thought Tuesdays Were Pottery, Now He Begs Me Home novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Pavilion

Bennett's POV

My mother's speech was nine minutes long, and it was perfect.

She stood at the lectern of the Pavilion ballroom in dove-gray silk, with her cane hooked on the stand.

The chandelier over her head was one my father had paid for.

Four hundred people sat at round tables with their salads half eaten.

She thanked the paramedics and the cardiologist.

She thanked the donors who had given their evenings, and the nurses who had given their lives.

She said that a woman never knows what her family means to her until she has been near the end.

They loved her for it.

I could hear it in the quiet.

At table one, I sat with my hands flat on the white cloth and watched a roomful of people take my mother at her word.

At table seven, in the back, in a dark green dress, sat my ex-wife, with a tall man in a rented tux beside her.

Cliff Dempsey had a shoebox under his chair.

I had a manila folder under mine.

Joss had given it to me that afternoon at the church, in the basement, over a folding table.

"Use it or don't," she'd said. "It's yours to decide."

I had thought about it all day, and I hadn't decided, and I was still not sure.

"And I would like to take a moment," my mother said, "to recognize one more person."

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