I Left to Make Him Follow, and He Let Me Go for Three Years novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Bake Sale

The St. Stanislaus bake sale started at nine on Saturday in the basement of the parish hall.

It was the eleventh of October.

The ninth had come and gone on Thursday, and Ansel had stayed home from work and sat in the kitchen with a candle and said nothing, and I had sat across from him and said nothing either.

I had not told him I knew why.

I did not yet know it all.

I went to the bake sale because Halina had said on the phone, in a voice like a closing door, "Everyone will be there, Neve. You should be seen."

I went because I wanted to look at Magda Pawlak in daylight, among people.

The basement smelled of cinnamon and floor wax.

Long folding tables ran down the middle, covered in paper tablecloths and trays of poppyseed rolls and apple cake and iced cookies shaped like pierogi.

Forty women in cardigans moved among them.

Halina stood at the head of the center table in black wool, receiving.

Magda stood behind the last table by the wall, selling babka from a wicker basket.

She wore a white blouse with the scarf pinned at the throat and a flesh-colored bandage around her left wrist.

She saw me and nodded.

I nodded back.

"Neve," said Halina as I came down the center aisle, in a voice that carried. "How good of you to come. Ladies, this is my son's wife."

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