Chapter 10: The Reading

On Sunday I walked into the Huntington dining room at the start of the soup, with the gray box in both arms.

Sam stayed in the hall by the front door, where I could hear him if I raised my voice.

Every chair was filled.

Odile sat at the head in her pearls.

Bancroft sat on her right, and when he saw me, he stood so fast that his chair went over.

"Tillie."

"Sit down," I said. "All of you. I came to do the reading this time."

Nobody moved.

I put the box on the table, between the bread and the water pitcher.

"Matilda," Odile said, "this is not the place."

"It's the only place you've ever used for it."

I took out the second folder and read the doctor's sheet aloud.

I read it slowly, in my library voice, the one I had used for story hour on Tuesday mornings.

"Patient J. Huntington, eleven weeks, three days. Viable. Heartbeat one fifty-eight. Wall thickness normal. No findings."

I turned the sheet around so the table could see the other line.

"And here, in Odile's handwriting. Reading: Cursed."

A cousin I had met at three Christmases put his spoon down.

I took out the third folder and read it the same way.

Then the fourth.

"Heartbeat. Wall normal. Reading: Cursed. Monday."

The table had gone silent.

"There is also a note in the margin of the fourth," I said. "I'd like to read this one very carefully."

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