The Love We Missed novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Table Four

Ciaran plated the skillet himself.

He did it exactly the way he'd done it for me, with the dark crumbs and the red flecks, and he didn't say a word.

The waiter carried it out to table four.

Patrick took a big bite and smiled at me through the window.

Bria took a small one.

She made a face and pushed the skillet away with one finger.

"Oh, no. That's way too spicy. Who puts hot sauce in mac and cheese?"

"Aileen does," his mother said, loud enough for the next table. "She always did."

"Send it back," Patrick told the waiter. "It's not what we ordered."

The waiter looked at the pass.

Ciaran wiped his hands.

"Carrot," I said quietly. "Can you take Nellie to help you crack the eggs?"

Carrot looked at me, then at the window table.

"Come on, Miss Nellie," she said. "I'll show you how to do it with one hand."

Nellie hopped off her stool and went with her into the back.

I waited until the kitchen door swung shut behind them.

Then I took off my apron and walked out into the dining room.

His mother saw me coming and set down her coffee cup.

She had a way of raising her voice without raising it, so it carried.

"I'm sorry, everyone," she said to the room. "I don't mean to make a scene. But my son's wife has been carrying on with his brother."

Every newspaper in the place lowered.

"She walked out of my birthday party on his arm last night. In front of all my friends."

"She's sleeping with my brother," Patrick said.

He said it right to me, but he said it to the room.

Bria held up her phone with the picture on it, my face turned up to Ciaran's on the country club steps.

The man with the baby in the carrier looked at the photo, then at me.

I stopped at the end of their table.

"Can I give everybody some dates?" I said.

Nobody told me no.

"October ninth was our seventh wedding anniversary. That's the night my husband asked me for a divorce. He brought the papers with him in his briefcase."

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