My Husband Is Dead Or Is He? novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Thirty-Five Percent

Bernadette's dining room seated sixteen, and on Sunday evening every chair was full.

The directors came, and so did the captains' wives and two old family friends.

Skye came as my plus-one, in the only dress she owned that wasn't scrubs.

There was a roast on the table and white candles down the middle, and Hamish's photograph on the sideboard with a black ribbon across the corner.

The man I called my husband sat at my right, with his cap in his pocket for once.

I had asked him to take it off.

"For the room," I'd said. "I want them to see your face."

He had taken it off without a word.

Bernadette sat at the head, poured the wine, and spoke warmly about my father.

She did not look at him.

When the plates were cleared, she rose with her glass.

"I want to thank you all for coming," she said. "This has been a terrible week, and I haven't been myself. I've said things I regret. Marlo, I hope you'll forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive," I said, and set the flip phone on the white tablecloth.

It made a small clack.

Fourteen people looked at it.

"What's that, honey?" Bernadette asked.

"A phone. It has one contact in it." I opened it. "It's called Mom."

"Marlo," Dale said, from the foot of the table.

"I'd like to call it, if nobody minds."

I pressed the button.

The little screen lit with the word Mom and the number under it.

Somewhere in the room, a phone began to buzz.

It was a low, muffled sound, coming from the black leather handbag hanging on the back of Bernadette's chair.

Nobody moved.

The buzzing went on.

Bernadette's face stayed pleasant.

"Oh, how silly," she said. "I'm sure that's a wrong number. Dale, would you?"

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