They Rejected My Daughter novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Nine Chairs

On Sunday afternoon I borrowed three chairs from the neighbor with the mug and two from the woman across the street.

The man in the bathrobe carried them over himself.

"I'm the one who filmed it," he said, setting the last one down in my hall. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was you."

"You didn't have to know it was me," I said.

"No," he said. "I suppose I didn't."

At two o'clock my kitchen held nine chairs and one folding table borrowed from the church.

Ruby had set it with the good plates from the top cupboard.

They had a blue rim and had belonged to her father's mother.

She had put out forks on the wrong side and then moved every one.

"Is it weird that I'm nervous?" she asked me.

"It's a dinner."

"It's not just a dinner."

"No," I said. "It's not."

The bus driver came first, with a pie from the grocery store and his cap in his hand.

The woman in scrubs came behind him, and this time her daughter held the front door for her and said hello to me without being asked.

The grandmother arrived with her cane and her grandson, who carried a bag in both arms.

Chloe and her father came last.

He had a new haircut and a pressed shirt, and he carried a casserole dish wrapped in a towel.

"I don't cook," he said. "My sister does. She says to put it in at three-fifty."

"Thank you."

"I called her. She's coming to stay for a while." He looked past me at the kitchen. "I figured I'd need help."

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