His Favorite Shirt novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Last Night
The night before the gala, Brielle came to the cottage alone.
She knocked, which she had never done before.
She stood on the step with her hair loose and no lipstick on.
"Five minutes," she said. "Then I'll go."
I let her in and stayed on my feet.
She did not sit either.
"You have the files," she said. "All of them. The pictures of her face."
"Yes."
"Tomorrow you'll put them on a screen in front of three hundred people, and every one of them will look at my daughter and see what you saw."
"I haven't said what I'll show."
"You don't have to." Her voice cracked. "I'll give you anything. I'll pay back every dollar Heath took. I'll pay the lodge to cancel the gala. I'll put it in writing that I'll never come near you or this lake."
"I don't want your money."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to tell it yourself."
She laughed, a short wet sound.
"And lose her?"
"Posy told me about the word you said to the mirror," I said. "You made her practice her part four times in a white dress."
Brielle's face went white.
"She is six," I said. "She watched you rehearse a wedding for a man who doesn't know the truth."
She stood there a long time.
"He'll go," she said finally. "Nolan. They all do."
"You said that about me too."
"And you're still here?"
"I'm still here."
She walked to the door with her shoulders square.
"You've never had anything to lose," she said. "That's your whole advantage."
"I had a ring and a dress and a name," I said. "I lost them in front of sixty people, and I'm still standing."
She did not answer.
When she was gone I stood in the cottage for a minute, shaking.
Then I put on my shoes and walked down to the boathouse.
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