Chapter 24: The Table

Nolan's POV

On the first Sunday of the month, my mother came to dinner with a pie.

She stood on Laurel's porch in her good coat, with the tin held out in both hands.

She looked like a woman returning a borrowed dish to someone who might slam the door.

"I wasn't sure if I should bring it," she said.

"Why wouldn't you?" said Laurel.

"It's a pie, and I'm the one who made it."

Laurel looked at the tin for one long second.

I held my breath.

"Is it apple?" Laurel asked.

"Apple and cinnamon."

"Then you'd better come in before it gets cold."

My mother's face crumpled, and she smiled through it.

She stepped over the threshold of the little rented house on Cedar Street.

The house had three rooms, a kitchen table, and four chairs that did not match.

Laurel rented it, and she had paid the first month herself, on the first, with a check.

I had taken a teaching job at the high school.

I would start in January.

I had bought a used desk, a set of maps, and a stack of paperbacks.

I had put Moby-Dick on the top shelf where I could not see it.

My mother set the pie on the counter, and the room went quiet.

There was a lot she could have said.

There was a trial in March, with her name on the docket.

Her lawyer thought she would get probation if she stood up and told it all again.

She had already told it twice.

Her hands shook as she took off her coat.

"Sit," said Laurel.

"I can help."

"Sit, Constance."

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