Chapter 14: Thanksgiving

The dining room looked exactly the way it had on the night I was supposed to be thrown out.

Same long mahogany table, same chandelier, same white hydrangeas in the middle.

Even the place cards were in the same order, with mine at the far end by the kitchen door.

Mom met us in the front hall in a cream dress and pearl earrings.

"Cadence," she said, and kissed the air beside my cheek. "You came home."

"I came to dinner."

"That's what I said." Her smile did not move. She turned it on Luka like a lamp. "And you brought a friend."

"Luka Kinney," he said, and shook her hand. "Cadence's friend from the legal clinic. Thank you for having me."

"Of course. Any friend of Cadence's."

She held his hand a second too long.

I knew that look. It was the one she gave a cost she was adding up.

"Phillip's in the study," she said. "He'll be along."

Dad came out of the study ten minutes later with a glass of scotch and did not shake Luka's hand at all.

"Kinney," he said. "I know your firm."

"Yes, sir. They speak well of you."

"They'd better." Dad looked at me for the first time. "I hope you've had time to think about how you behaved."

"I have."

"Good. We can start fresh."

He said it as though he were offering me a chair he had already pulled out from under me.

The relatives arrived in twos and threes, in good wool and cashmere, kissing each other and not looking at me.

My aunts had tight mouths. One of them, Dad's older sister, squeezed my hand as she passed and said nothing at all.

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