The Summer I Left novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Sunday Service
A deputy was waiting in the library hallway.
He took Brynn by the elbow before she finished her next sentence. She screamed at the glass and at the carpet and at me, and the sound went down the corridor with her and finally stopped behind a door.
Nate stood against the wall, holding his scratched wrist, breathing in and out.
Eddie handed him the phone.
"Still works," Eddie said. "I checked. I also ate your pretzel."
Nate nodded slowly. It took him a minute, but he almost smiled.
On Sunday, Carol asked me to come to church.
She did not ask me to forgive anyone. She asked me to sit in the back, and she said she had something to say.
I sat in the last pew in my thrift-store blazer, with Eddie on one side of me and Nate on the other, with his headphones on.
The sanctuary was nearly full.
Every head had turned when I came in. Some turned away fast.
The pastor finished the reading.
"Before the offering," he said, "Mrs. Bradfield has asked to speak."
Carol stood up in the second row.
She walked to the front with her purse held in front of her, and she did not take the microphone. She turned around to face the room.
"Most of you gave money to a page this summer," she said. "Some of you gave a great deal. I want to tell you what you paid for."
Nobody coughed.
"My son Drew is in the back of this church. I raised him for eighteen years. In April we learned he wasn't born to us, and we found the boy who was."
She took a breath.
"You all know what we did to him. I will not list it for you."
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