Chapter 6: New Year's Breakfast

I woke in a bed with four posts and a quilt older than my mother.

Sun came through the curtains, and for a fleeting moment I didn't remember anything.

Then my hand went to my stomach.

There was no cramp, and no blood.

I lay there and let myself breathe.

Someone had left a robe on the chair and a tray on the table, with tea and dry toast and a note in thin handwriting.

"Eat first. Stairs second. Breakfast is at nine. B."

I ate the toast.

The dining room was on the ground floor, so I took the stairs one careful step at a time, with a hand on the rail.

Beatrice sat at the head of a long table with a newspaper folded beside her plate.

Bennett was across from her in shirtsleeves, buttering a roll.

Teagan sat next to him, in yesterday's scrubs, eating a third pancake.

"She slept in the guest room," Teagan announced to me, with her mouth full. "I slept in a chair. The man brought me a blanket and a pancake."

"Bennett," said Beatrice. "You brought my guest a pancake."

"She looked hungry," said Bennett.

"She looked like she'd drive to Queens to hit someone with a pan," said Teagan.

"That too."

I sat down and Bennett pushed a plate toward me without being asked.

I looked at the table.

At the foot of it, three places down from Beatrice, there was one empty chair with a full setting in front of it.

White china, a silver fork, a folded napkin.

It was the first of January, and the chair was still laid.

"I haven't had the heart to clear it," said Beatrice, following my eyes. "It's been laid since Christmas Eve."

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