Chapter 13: The Dinner

The Garrow Grand ballroom held three hundred people, and every one of them had read my face on a phone that week.

They looked at me anyway.

They looked at the midnight-blue dress, and the scar, which I had not covered, and at the man on my left.

"I can't find my glasses," Dominic whispered.

"They're on your head."

"Ah." He settled them onto his nose. "That explains the blur."

Jonas stood a step behind my right shoulder in a black suit with the collar open.

He had not been told to stand there.

He had decided.

The family table sat at the foot of the stage, round and white, with eight chairs.

I had written the place cards myself.

Dominic was at the stage side.

I was directly across the flowers from three cards in my own handwriting.

Marla Diekema. Dwight Diekema. Brooke Diekema.

At seven-fifteen the doors opened and they came in.

Marla wore her good navy dress and her pearls, walking with rigid, imperious authority.

Dwight followed in a suit that had been bought for someone thinner.

Brooke came last, her hair done, a new ring on her hand and her phone already up.

Marla was not alone.

An older man in a clerical collar walked at her elbow, and a thin woman in glasses carried a church handbag against her chest.

"Our pastor," Marla said to the nearest donor, warmly. "And the treasurer of our building fund. They wouldn't hear of us coming alone."

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