The Choices We Made novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Her Chair

At Constance's dinner Gretchen sits in Eliza's seat and Albie calls her Mommy Syd. Eliza tells the room what Gretchen and Weston did and says she is leaving, and Weston tells her the adoption papers carry only his name.

Eliza did not sleep.

At six she stood in the dressing room and counted what she would take.

Her nursing license. Her mother's ring. The photographs of her mother's house in Harlow Falls.

Nothing Weston had bought her.

At breakfast he read the paper and Albie pushed eggs around a plate.

Neither of them looked at her.

"There's a dinner tonight," Weston said. "My mother's committee. Eight o'clock."

"I'll be there," Eliza said.

He looked up, because she had never said yes so easily.

She buttered a slice of toast and watched him look away.

At eight the long table in the dining room held twenty guests and two candelabras.

Constance Schermerhorn sat at the head with her silver bob and her pearls. She nodded at Eliza once and looked away.

Eliza's place card was at the far end, beside the wall.

The seat next to Weston, the wife's seat, held Gretchen Kittredge in pale blue silk.

She was laughing at something he had said.

Albie sat on her other side with a napkin tucked in his collar.

"Eliza, there you are," Gretchen called down the table. "I hope you don't mind. Constance thought I'd be a comfort to Albie while you were away."

Several women smiled at that.

Eliza did not move.

"Mommy Syd, can I have the roll?" Albie said.

Eliza felt the word land in her chest.

Gretchen lifted her eyes to Eliza across the candles. She did not smile this time.

It lasted half a breath.

Then she turned and tore the roll in half for the boy.

Eliza walked the length of the table.

Twenty guests watched her come. Weston began to push his chair back.

"Stay there," Eliza said to him.

He stayed.

She stopped behind the wife's chair and put one hand on it.

"That's my seat," she said to Gretchen.

"Oh, Eliza, don't," Gretchen said softly. "Not in front of Albie."

"Funny. You'll say it in front of him when it suits you."

She took her hand off the chair and faced the room.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. I'll be short. Five years ago, I was seven months pregnant and walking in this garden."

The talk at the table died.

"Gretchen Kittredge walked up to me and kicked me in the stomach. I lost my son."

Somebody's fork hit a plate.

"The charges against her were dropped. My husband signed a letter of forgiveness for her. He signed my name, and I never agreed to it."

Constance's voice cut in, sharp and low. "Eliza. That's enough."

"It's not nearly enough."

Eliza turned to her husband.

"Weston Schermerhorn, you forged my signature to free the woman who killed my child. Tomorrow I'm filing for divorce."

Nobody breathed.

Gretchen put a hand over her mouth. Her eyes filled, quick and shining.

"I've apologized to her for years," she whispered. "I was a girl. I was so frightened."

A woman halfway down the table patted Gretchen's wrist.

Eliza saw it, and understood who this room belonged to.

She didn't lower her voice.

"You were twenty-six."

Gretchen flinched.

"Albie, sweetheart, it's all right," Gretchen said, and slid her arm around him.

He leaned into her side without a glance at Eliza.

"I'll go and pack," Eliza said. "Albie, I'll come to say goodnight."

"No," Albie said into Gretchen's silk. "Not you."

It hurt, and she did not let it show.

"Then I'll come and say goodnight anyway," she said, and went out.

Upstairs she pulled her mother's old suitcase from the closet.

Her hands moved fast. Her ring, the license, her mother's photographs.

Weston stood in the doorway before she had finished.

He closed the door behind him and kept his voice low.

"You humiliated my mother in front of her committee."

"Your mother set me beside the wall."

"You can't take Albie."

She zipped the case and looked up.

"I raised him from three weeks old. Watch me."

"He is not yours on paper."

Weston's face did not change.

"When we adopted him, you were still in the hospital. My mother handled the agency. The papers have one name on them."

"Whose?"

"Mine."

Eliza stood very still.

"If you walk out of this house tonight," he said, "you walk out without him."

She took the handle from his hand.

"Then I'll walk out and come back for him."

She went down the stairs past twenty silent guests and a woman in pale blue silk, and nobody stopped her.

At the front door, Albie's voice carried down from the landing.

He was humming two low notes.

She did not turn around.

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