Chapter 11: Three Rules

I turned around with the photograph held against my skirt, face down.

"Brendan's book isn't here," I said. "I went looking."

My voice sounded easy.

I had done sixty years of dinner parties, and I knew how to make a voice sound easy.

Lena's eyes dropped to my hand.

"What's that?"

I turned it over, quickly, so that all she could see was the white border and the boy's shoulder.

"Brendan as a kid, I think. He was cute. Do you know who that is?"

Her face changed for a moment, and then it was smooth again.

"Oh. A cousin from the river, I think. He had loads of them."

"Ah."

"Put it back, Ciara. He hates people going through his things."

"Of course."

I opened the drawer and laid the print on the bank statements, face down, as I'd found it.

I pushed the drawer shut with my knee.

My hands were trembling, and I put them behind my back.

"Mrs. Sutcliffe asked me to give you this," Lena said, and held out a cream envelope.

I opened it in the hall.

The Sutcliffe Spring Gala. Saturday, eight o'clock, black tie. Please bring a guest.

Under it, in Harriet's slanted hand: You will attend with Brendan, or the notice on your father's door stays.

I put the card in my coat pocket.

"I'll be there," I said.

"I'm so glad." Lena hugged me again at the door.

I let her.

I felt her breathing against my shoulder, and I thought: sixty years.

Sixty years of Sunday dinners at my table, and birthday cards, and her hand on my back at my father's funeral.

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