Desperate for Approval novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Toast

The ballroom at the Grand Hotel had two hundred chairs and one chandelier, and Dad stood under it with a microphone and a glass of water.

Table two sat directly below the stage.

I was between Grandma in her green dress and Brandon, with Kelsey two seats down in a sweater and her hair over her face.

On Kelsey's lap, under the tablecloth, was a camera with its red light on.

"Nineteen years ago," Dad said, "I took on something no man plans for."

The room went quiet in the soft way of people who are about to be moved.

"A little girl, three years old, whose mother had died. She came to me with one pair of shoes."

That was a lie.

She came to Grandma's with a pair of shoes, and Dad was still in the city.

"I did not complain," Dad said. "I bought the coats and the mittens, and the school clothes, and the doctors. I paid every bill from my own pocket."

At table one, a thin man in a navy suit with a leather folder in front of him nodded slowly.

That was the manufacturer's rep.

Marla sat beside Dad's empty chair with her hands in her lap, looking at no one.

"I believe a father gives," Dad said. "That is the whole of it. A father gives, and does not ask to be thanked."

People clapped, a little, and he lifted a hand to stop them, which made them clap harder.

Grandma's fingers closed on my wrist.

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