Chapter 14: Say Yes, Good Girl

My mother set the dining table for nine and put me between Trevor and an empty chair.

The empty chair was for Talbot.

She had invited him herself, by phone, as Mr. Ward of the sponsor table, in her sweetest voice.

He arrived at six in a dark jacket, shook my father's hand, and said he was glad to meet the man behind the award.

My father said the pleasure was his.

Neither of them let go first.

Dinner was roast lamb on the good china.

Two guests I did not know sat across from us, a donor with a loud laugh and his wife.

The chair of the hospital board sat at my father's right, a gray-haired woman in pearls who ate very little and watched everyone.

Ivy sat beside her, in a cream cardigan, with her cane hooked on the chair.

She had not looked at me once.

Trevor had come in with Ivy.

I had not known he would be there.

He kissed my cheek in front of everybody and said, "Hey, babe. I missed you."

Under the table, Talbot moved his boot until it rested against my ankle.

He kept talking to the donor about trail maps and did not look at me.

I let it stay.

It was the only warm thing in the room.

When the lamb was gone, my father tapped his glass.

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