Chapter 6: The Table

The club ate together on Wednesday nights, and June told me I was not allowed to skip it.

"If you hide in that room, they'll think you're scared of them," she said. "They'll be hurt."

"Hurt?"

"These men cry at dog food commercials. Put on the green sweater."

The clubhouse was one big room with a bar down one side and a long plank table down the middle.

A dozen men sat at it, along with four women.

They were making a noise I had not heard in five years, which was people interrupting each other.

Somebody had made a vat of chili, and somebody else was arguing about cornbread.

When I walked in, the whole table went quiet.

Then Wick, at the far end, stood up so fast that his chair fell over.

"Ma'am," he said. "I'd like to formally apologize."

"For what?"

"For hovering. On Friday. I was told I hovered."

"You made me coffee," I said. "It was good coffee."

The table roared.

A gray-bearded man with a patch that said SERGEANT AT ARMS pulled out the chair beside his own.

"Sit, Alexis. I held you when you were three days old."

"You did not."

"I did. You threw up on my cut." He grinned. "Best thing that ever happened to it."

I laughed, a real laugh, and the whole room softened.

They passed me bread and asked me nothing about my face.

One of them slid a bowl of chili in front of me.

Another told a long story about a cow on Route 9.

It was the first meal in five years where nobody watched my hands.

I looked up once and found Talon watching me from the other end of the table.

He was leaning back in his chair with a beer, and the sawdust was gone from his arms.

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