A Happy Family Without Me novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Winter Recital

"He's already coming," I said. "He asked me last week, before you did."

Poppy grinned, with the gap in her front teeth showing.

"I knew it," she said, and went back to her sheet music.

The second Saturday in December came with the first real snow.

It fell all afternoon on the music school's roof and lawn, and the parking lot was white by five.

I wore the dark blue dress again, with a coat over it.

Torsten wore the suit.

He stood in my front hall straightening his cuffs, and I took his tie out of his hands and tied it myself.

"You do that well," he said.

"I did it for ten years."

"Not for him tonight."

"Not for him," I said, and kissed him on the corner of the mouth.

The hall had a low stage and a black piano, and the front row was empty.

Nobody had put out a sign, and nobody sat there.

The second row filled up as we came in.

Maeve was there already, in a green sweater, waving both arms.

Garner's mother sat at the end with her cane hooked on the chair in front, in a good wool dress.

Beside her, in clean clothes with their hair combed, sat the boy and the girl.

The boy wore a bow tie.

The girl had a purple coat on her lap and a paper program she was holding upside down.

"Hi," the boy said to me, very formally.

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