Pretty Baby novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Pretty Baby
The house stood alone on a bluff on the Michigan shore of the lake.
It had gray shingles, a screened porch and a single enormous window facing the sky.
Stefan had bought it at thirty and never let anyone in.
He carried the nurse across the lawn himself, in a blanket, because the wheelchair would not go on the grass.
She weighed nothing.
"I haven't been carried since I was a girl," she said, laughing and wheezing. "Put me where I can see."
He set her in a cushioned chair at the end of the dock, facing the water, with a private nurse hovering beside her.
The sun was low and gold, and the lake was flat as a plate.
There were fourteen of us.
The nanny had put on a blue dress and cried before we started.
The housekeeper from Lake Forest had asked to come, and Stefan had said yes without a pause.
The old director from the board stood at the back with his hat in both hands.
A woman from the far end of the table had brought a pie.
A retired judge in a seersucker jacket held a small book.
My mother was not there.
I had told her, on the phone, that I would write when I was ready, and she had said, thank you for telling me.
At six o'clock, Mabel came down the porch steps with a basket of petals and a stuffed rabbit tied to her wrist with a ribbon.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Pretty Baby are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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