Chapter 20: The Founders' Dinner

The fellowship hall at Dad's church held a hundred and twenty people, and every folding chair was full.

Round tables stood under paper lanterns.

A photograph of my father hung on an easel by the stage.

He wore his blue Sunday tie and was laughing at somebody off to the side.

I walked in at six o'clock with Ross on my left and Rafe on my right.

Rafe wore the black suit.

The bruise on his cheekbone had gone yellow-green, and the split in his lip had scabbed.

Heads turned down the room.

My aunt put her hand to her throat.

At the head table, Victoria looked up from her glass.

For one second I saw her whole body understand.

Then she laid her napkin down, rose smoothly, and crossed the room to the pastor with her hands clasped.

"Pastor," she said, in her sweetest voice. "That man is not allowed near me. There's a court order."

The pastor was a tall, gentle man who had baptized all four of us.

He looked at Rafe, and at the bruise, and at me.

"The order covers you and the Doherty house, I believe," he said. "This is the church."

"But he."

"This is my father's dinner," I said. "I invited him."

"I'll keep an eye on things," the pastor said to her, kindly, and went back to his soup.

Victoria's lips pressed together.

She went back to the head table without another word.

We sat at a round table near the middle.

Kent sat at his mother's table two rows over, in a dark suit.

He never touched the plate in front of him.

He looked at me once.

I shook my head very slightly, and he looked down.

Dustin came in late and took the seat beside Victoria.

He did not look in our direction at all.

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