I Was Never One of Them novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Same Saturday
Hazel's POV
My mother's porch held a dozen people, and every one of them had been invited.
I counted twice, because I could.
The charge nurse stood by the rail in a green dress, holding a casserole.
The father with the clipboard had brought his daughter, who wore a paper crown from the playroom and would not let go of my hand.
The retired surgeon sat in the one good chair, pretending she had not cried when she heard the vows read through at dawn.
Two neighbors, the dialysis nurse, a man from the clinic who had put his own name on a waiting list for her, and my mother in the front, in her blue dress, with her cane.
It was the Saturday I had picked for Gavin.
It was cold and bright, and the maple in the yard had dropped everything it owned.
I wore my mother's veil.
She had pinned it herself that morning, with her thin steady fingers, standing behind me at the mirror.
"There," she said. "Now it's been worn right."
Rhys waited at the bottom of the porch steps in a dark suit that fit.
I had taken him to a tailor the evening before, and the old man had sewn through the night.
He had asked what size Rhys wore, and Rhys had said he didn't know, because no one had asked him in eight years.
He turned when I came out the door.
I had thought I understood how he looked at me.
I did not.
He looked at me.
"You're early," I said.
"I was here at six."
"You were here at five. My mother told me."
"She gave me coffee."
"Of course she did."
The paper-crowned girl giggled.
I was halfway down the steps when a car turned in from the road and stopped at the curb.
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