My Ex-Husband's New Wife Asked Me to Take Him Back novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Harvest Supper

The Harvest Supper at the Reformed church hall had two hundred people, nine kinds of casserole, and a pie table I was personally responsible for.

I was cutting a pumpkin pie into eight pieces when the room changed.

You can feel it in a small town.

The talk dips, then rises, then dips again.

I looked up.

Gabe had come in the side door in a clean blue shirt.

Behind him came Adele, in a green dress, with her curls pinned back.

They weren't together.

They had arrived at the same time, in two cars, and nobody in the room knew what to do with that.

Four church ladies by the coffee urn turned.

"That's the first wife," one of them said, not quietly. "Susanna. The tall one."

"Is she the reason?"

"Hush. The Lundeens aren't even sitting together."

My knife stopped in the pie.

I thought, I could go into the kitchen.

I thought, I could drop this knife on the floor and walk out the back door and be in Chicago by dawn.

Then Adele crossed the whole hall.

She walked right between the long tables with her chin up, past the ladies and the urn and a boy with a roll in each hand, and she came straight to the pie table.

"Susie," she said. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Is that the pumpkin?"

"Yes."

"I'd like a big slice."

"They're all the same."

"Then I'd like to be given the biggest one by you."

She put her arms around me, over the table, across a plate of whipped cream.

She held on for three full seconds.

I felt every head in the church hall turn.

"What are you doing?" I whispered into her curls.

"Being obvious," she whispered back. "It's quicker than gossip."

She let go and smiled at me.

Then she turned around, and said, in a clear, pleasant, carrying voice:

"Everyone, this is Susie Haverkamp. She's visiting from Chicago and she makes excellent pie. Gabe and I are separating, it's friendly, and we'd all be grateful if you'd save the casseroles for the people who need them."

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