Chapter 17: The Toast

Donovan had moved before the sound stopped.

He stood between his mother and me, and for the first time in his life he had his back to her.

"Don't," he said, without turning around.

"Donovan, let her," I said.

My cheek was hot, and my eyes watered, and I did not lift a hand to it.

"I want everyone to see the whole thing."

Odette stood with her palm still raised.

She looked at it, and then at the cameras the press had lifted.

Her mouth trembled once.

She was a woman who had never been seen losing her temper in her life.

"I'm sorry, Kathleen," Odette said, too loudly. "I'm overwrought. Everyone is."

I let her hear the silence after it.

"The foundation gala is on Thursday," I said. "You've never cancelled one."

"We will hold it."

"Then I'll be there. You'll stand up and give a toast, like you did on the anniversary. You'll raise your glass to me, and I'll answer it."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because the video of that slap goes out tonight," I said. "And you need something to be filmed doing tomorrow that isn't this."

She understood me completely.

She straightened her pearls and walked out of the lobby with her chin high, and Lowell followed her, gray in the face.

On Thursday night the ballroom was full again.

Two hundred guests had come, and a good third were there to watch.

I wore a green dress I had bought in a hurry that afternoon, and Donovan stood beside me at the edge of the floor.

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