I Was Never One of Them novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Head of the Table

The empty chair did not stop the room.

My mother had meant for it to stay there, in plain sight, and everyone at the table understood that without being told.

The paper-crowned girl looked at it, then at me.

"Whose seat is that?" she asked.

"My brother's," I said.

"Where is he?"

"He couldn't come today."

She accepted this.

"Does he get food?"

"He gets first plate," my mother said. "He always did. Hazel, you're at the head of the table. You serve."

I looked at the pot roast.

Rhys stood at my elbow with the carving knife, waiting.

He did not take the dish out of my hands, and he did not tell me where to stand.

He only waited, the way he had waited at the creek and on the porch and outside the courthouse.

I cut the first slice.

I laid it on my brother's plate.

Then I put the green beans beside it, a heap of them, more than he would ever have eaten.

My mother laughed out loud.

"He hated those."

"I know," I said. "That's why."

The whole table laughed, and the sound filled the dining room up to the ceiling.

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