The Anniversary Dinner He Gave to Her novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Open Floor

All night Hugh's question sat in my chest: why was Cora putting groceries away in a house she didn't live in?

At breakfast in the kitchen below my flat, I told him I'd get the answer out of Neil myself.

"I'm going to find out whose house that is," Hugh said, and shut the kitchen door so the cooks couldn't hear.

I said nothing.

Then I put on the green dress, because the agency held its client appreciation night that Friday, in the ballroom of the hotel two blocks from Aurelle.

It was the same night every year.

Clients came in good coats, ate crab cakes and shook hands with my father-in-law under a banner that said Brandwell & Sons, Forty Years.

I had worn the green dress to the last one.

I wore the green dress again.

Hugh walked me to the ballroom door, then stopped.

"You don't want me in there," he said.

"No."

"I'll be at the bar if you want a drink."

"I won't."

"Then I'll be at the bar if you want to leave."

I walked in alone.

There were about two hundred people, and the crowd parted for me without knowing why.

On the little stage at the far end, my father-in-law stood at the microphone with a glass in his hand.

Gail stood at his side.

Neil stood a step behind them both, in his best suit, with a name tag on the lapel.

"...and I want to thank every one of you," my father-in-law was saying, "for trusting this family with what you love most..."

I climbed the three steps onto the stage.

Nobody stopped me.

I think they thought I was part of the program.

"Excuse me," I said, and took the microphone out of his hand.

He let me.

I think it was the surprise.

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