Chapter 6: The Advent Supper

The video had four thousand views by Tuesday night.

It was thirty seconds of my kitchen, filmed over a teacup from the far end of the table.

It began with me staring at the cookies and ended with me taking my coat off the hook.

It did not have the bakery woman's voice on it.

Someone had cut the speakerphone out.

"They can't do that," I said to Emmett, in the shop, over a bowl of soup I'd made from what was in his cupboard.

"They did."

"It's a lie."

"It's an edit," he said. "That's worse. People believe an edit."

"Then I'll show them the rest."

"Where?"

Zoey had texted that afternoon.

Advent supper at church, tomorrow at six. Grandma runs the table.

"The one place she can't leave," I said.

He put his spoon down.

"I'll drive."

"You'll wait in the truck."

"Joanna."

"They'll say I brought you to hurt her."

"Won't you be?" he said, quite mildly.

I thought about it.

"No," I said. "I'll be doing it to tell the truth. The hurting is just on the side."

The church hall had green carpet and folding tables laid with paper tablecloths.

Thirty people were already seated when I came in with my phone in one hand and my printed bakery order in the other.

I had put on the good coat.

Dorothea stood at the head of the serving line in an apron with a holly print.

She saw me and did not stop ladling.

The woman who had posted the video was beside her, and she went pink.

The pastor was a tall, stooped man with kind eyes who had married Bryce and me.

He came across the room with his hands out.

"Joanna. We've all been so worried."

"I know," I said. "I read about it. That's why I came."

"We can talk afterward, dear," Dorothea called, in the voice she used for fussy children. "Let's not disturb the supper."

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