Chapter 24: Everyone Present

At eight the next morning my bathroom held five people and one test.

The test sat on the marble counter beside the sink.

Nobody had touched it for nearly three minutes, and nobody had stopped looking at it.

Sterne stood with his arms crossed and a pocket watch he did not need.

Jax sat on the edge of the tub, on his best behavior, which meant his hands were under his thighs.

Willem had brought his sketchbook and had not opened it.

Phillip stood at my shoulder.

He had put on his tie, and then taken it off again, and then put it in his pocket.

"Excuse me," said the vacuum, rolling in from the hall. "Obstacle detected."

It had found my mother-in-law's shoe.

She stood in the doorway in her navy suit with the leather notebook open and a fountain pen already uncapped.

"Willem," I said.

"I'm disabling the bathroom route," Willem said, and tapped his phone. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

"It was perfectly polite," said my mother-in-law.

"Time," said Sterne.

Nobody breathed.

I picked up the test, and I read it, and I read it again, because I do not believe a number until I have checked it twice.

Two lines, both pink.

"Well?" Jax said.

"Two lines."

Jax made a noise that I had only heard from him in front of nine hundred people.

Willem sat down on the bath mat, quite suddenly, and covered his face with the sketchbook.

Sterne took off his glasses and put them on again.

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