Chapter 21: The Tent Comes Down

My mother's voice shook, but it carried.

"I signed Imogen's name on that tent," she said to the lawn. "I let Conrad tell her his heart was failing."

"She sent six hundred dollars a month for my medicine. My medicine costs forty."

"Maureen, sit down," my father said.

"I kept a letter in a drawer for nine years because I couldn't write the last line," she said. "Imogen must never know."

"And then I let her pay for the tent."

She turned to me with her whole face wet.

"I'm so sorry."

It was not the apology I'd wanted.

It was only the first true thing she had said to me.

I held out the microphone and she took it.

Then I took it back.

"You can sit," I said. "Thank you."

She sat, in the front row, alone.

My father was still standing.

The red had gone out of his face and left it gray.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, in his counter voice, "this has been a misunderstanding. Family business. We'll sort it out inside."

Nobody moved.

A man in the sixth row stood up with his hat in his hand.

He was one of the contractors from the hardware store, the one with the basket of screws.

"Conrad," he said. "Is it true about the heart?"

"Don't do this here."

"I've been buying from you for thirty years."

"Please."

"I'll be taking my business to the lumberyard," the contractor said, and put his hat on.

He walked out down the center aisle.

The woman with the paint chips stood and followed him.

Then a couple I didn't know.