Chapter 6: The Partners' Dinner

Brice texted me the next morning.

Partners' dinner Saturday, seven, the Aldine Hotel. They're naming me partner. I'd love you there. Please.

I read it twice and showed Samson.

"He wants you in the room," Samson said.

"He wants me quiet in a good dress, smiling at his side."

"Don't go."

"I'm going," I said. "And so are you."

He took a long time to answer.

"My father will be there."

"Then you can say hello."

The Aldine ballroom held eighty people at round tables, with a podium at the front and a screen behind it that said Congratulations, Brice.

Tierney sat at table nine in a black dress, alone, with her hands flat in her lap.

She saw me the second I came through the doors, and she went gray.

I had on my mother's green dress, taken in at the waist by a dry cleaner who asked no questions.

Samson walked in beside me in a dark suit.

Heads turned.

At the front table an old man in a navy blazer stood up halfway out of his chair, stared at Samson, and sat down again.

"That's him," Samson said under his breath.

"Your father."

"Retired judge. He backed Brice in everything, for thirty-four years."

"Does he still know your name?"

"We'll find out."

Brice was on the dais with a glass in his hand, laughing with the senior partner.

He saw me over the senior partner's shoulder.

His laugh stopped for half a second, and then he started it again.

When the senior partner finished the toast, Brice took the podium.

"Thank you all," he said. "I want to thank the firm for believing in me, and my father for teaching me what a lawyer is for."

He found my face in the crowd and smiled.

"And I want to thank the woman who's been waiting for me across an ocean for three and a half years. Victoria, would you come up?"

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