Plowed by My Stepfather novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Breakfast

The Grange hall smelled of pancakes and coffee and a hundred people trying not to look at me.

I walked in on Saturday morning with Dean beside me in his one suit jacket.

Birdie had saved us two chairs at the long table near the front.

Every conversation in the room dropped to a murmur, then rose again, too loud.

"Smile," Birdie muttered. "Eat a pancake. Pretend you're royalty."

"I'm going to throw up."

"Then do it on Orrin."

Orrin was at the head table in his pressed plaid shirt.

Kent sat beside him, freshly shaved, with his hair combed and no ring on his finger.

He caught my eye and gave me a small sad nod.

Three women at the next table looked at me with pity.

After the pancakes, Orrin stood and tapped his coffee cup with a spoon.

"Neighbors," he said. "Thank you all for coming. Planting season is the hardest work in the world, and the best."

There was a rumble of agreement.

"I'll just say one more thing, and then we'll let you eat." He folded his hands. "We've had a hard winter. We lost Brenda."

A few people murmured her name.

"Her daughter is carrying a heavy load, and some of us are worried about her."

He didn't look at Dean.

"I don't want to say anything unkind. But a young woman alone out there, grieving, and a man who's been in that house since the day her mother died..."

He let it hang.

"Folks are going to talk," Orrin said gently. "And I'd hate for it to hurt her."

Nobody spoke.

An older woman near the back said, "Well, it isn't right," and someone shushed her.

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