Chapter 4: Mavis's Table

Mavis Ward cooked dinner for us on Thursday, and I understood by the second course that it was an interrogation.

She roasted a chicken in Cade's kitchen like she owned the oven, which she did.

Cade stood at the counter slicing bread with the face of a man who had lost this argument before.

"Sit," Mavis told me. "Not there. That's his chair. Sit here, where I can see you."

I sat.

She put a glass of red wine in front of me and watched me not drink it.

"What do you do, Sorcha Delaney?"

"I'm a florist."

"Where?"

"A little shop on Halsted. McBride's. I've worked there since I was nineteen."

"What's the hardest flower to keep alive?"

"Peonies," I said without thinking. "They want to die the minute you cut them."

"Mm."

Cade set the bread down.

"Gran."

"I'm making conversation," Mavis said. "You wanted a wife who looks like she belongs. She should at least be able to talk."

"She talks fine."

"She talks when she's scared," Mavis said. "I want to hear what she says when she isn't."

"Gran, the sponsor's deadline is December seventh."

"I know the date, Cade. I signed the morals clause."

She turned to me with her fork in the air.

"If this marriage doesn't hold, Harlan walks and the club folds, and sixty-two players lose their jobs."

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