Chapter 13: Two Pink Lines

My mother had set the table for eight and put my chair at the far end, by the kitchen door.

The tray of boxes was gone from the sideboard.

It was the first Sunday in ten that it wasn't there.

Lacey sat at my mother's right hand, in a cream sweater, with one palm resting low on her stomach.

Dustin sat next to her, shaved and silent, with his eyes on his plate.

Her other hand was under the tablecloth on his knee, and his shoulders were up by his ears.

My father said grace for longer than usual.

Both my aunts were there, and my uncle from Sandusky, and none of them would look at me for more than a second.

"Is the photographer booked for the fourteenth?" my aunt asked over the ham. "I want to wear the blue."

"Booked and paid," Lacey said, smiling down the table. "It's a surprise for Mom and Dad, so nobody spoil it."

Dustin's fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

I thought of the appointment book with his name in it, and I said nothing, and I kept my eyes on my plate.

When the plates were cleared, my mother put her napkin down and her hand over Lacey's.

"Lacey has something to tell us all," she said. "Dean already knows."

"I know what she told me," I said. "Six weeks."

Lacey opened her purse.

She took out a white plastic stick in a sandwich bag and laid it on the cloth beside the gravy boat.

There were two pink lines in the little window.

My aunt made a sound in her throat.

My uncle said, "Well, congratulations," and then looked at me and wished he hadn't.

My mother started crying, quietly into her napkin.

"I wasn't going to make a show of it," Lacey said. Her eyes were wet. "Dean asked me to prove it, so I did."

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