Silence Was Not Forgiveness novel · Chapter 4 of 24
Chapter 4: Tea
My mother's office has a window over the lumber yard and a framed photo of my father on the credenza.
She was standing at the window when I came in.
"Close the door," she said. "Sit."
I closed it. I stayed standing.
"I'm not angry," my mother said, turning around.
"Mom."
"I'm not. I'm thrilled." She came around the desk and took my hands in hers. "A Dahlberg baby. Your father would have cried."
"Kendall had no right to tell you before she told me."
"She told you first. She told you this morning, with the whole floor watching." My mother patted my wrist. "Half the sales floor has already been to see me. Sit down, Nolan."
I sat in the leather chair across from her desk.
"Mom, what if it isn't mine?"
She looked at me with real surprise and then with real distaste.
"Don't be vulgar. Kendall is a Dahlberg girl in everything but name. I picked her out myself."
"You picked her out?"
"For marketing, naturally. I hired her myself." She sat down and folded her hands. "She's been wonderful. And you have been so unhappy, and I have said nothing, because it wasn't my place."
That was not true. She had said plenty, for two years, to anyone who stood still.
"This is not Lena's fault," I said. It was the closest I could come.
"Nobody said it was," my mother said gently. "Some women's bodies simply can't. It isn't a sin."
I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.
"Now listen to me," she said. "You will say nothing to Lena. Not a syllable. I want the family together on the fifteenth, with her parents there to hold her up."
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