I Took His Prison Sentence. Now He Begs. novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: My Wife

The Linwood Foundation dinner was held in the ballroom of the Harbor Club, ninety feet from the lobby where I had torn up my life.

Ben wore a dark suit that he had plainly bought for a funeral.

I wore a green dress that the crew had pooled money for, and they had stood on the dock and whistled when I came down the stairs.

"You look fine," Ben said in the truck.

"Fine."

"I mean you look like..." He stopped, and gripped the wheel, and said nothing else for six miles.

Morton Linwood stood at the head of the longest table with a glass in his hand.

Sixty people in evening clothes turned to look at us, and the room made the small hush a room makes for a bad smell.

"My son's former fiancée," Morton said warmly. "And her husband. Please, sit. We have a place for you at the end."

The place was beside the kitchen door.

I sat.

Ben sat beside me and put his folded lease on the white cloth, next to his bread plate.

Morton let the first course go by.

Then he stood again and tapped his glass, and the whole board of Linwood Homes put down their forks.

"I want to say a word about second chances," he said. "This foundation was built on them. We fund scholarships for women coming out of the county jail."

A few people clapped.

"Tonight we have a living example." He turned his glass toward me. "Mrs. Crane served three years for killing a young woman on Harbor Road. I'm told she was a model prisoner."

Nobody moved.

"We are, of course, a forgiving family. I even offered her a quarter of a million dollars to start over." His smile was gentle. "She declined it. I understand that prison teaches the value of money in a different way than it teaches the value of gratitude."

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