Five Years Gone, She Walked Back In, So I Walked Out novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Regatta Table
Stevie's POV
The regatta lunch took up the whole length of the main dock, with white tables and paper lanterns and four hundred people eating clam chowder out of cups.
My mother-in-law stood at the head table in a lilac suit, welcoming the town.
Poppy was on the shore side with the teacher friend, watching the tiny sailboats of the junior race tip and right themselves.
I had a pass on my lapel that said FAMILY, which I had earned the hard way.
Sawyer stood beside me in a gray jacket and did not touch me.
He had given me the plan on Monday, in the cabin kitchen, with Poppy's cereal bowl still on the table.
I had said yes before he finished.
"There," he said under his breath.
Dev was sitting at a corner table with a beer and a straw hat, looking pleased with himself.
Lorna sat two tables away in a blue dress, alone, with her hands folded.
At eleven she had walked into the harbor office and asked the deputies, politely, to have lunch on the dock.
A man in a polo shirt stood by the bar with a camera around his neck. He was from the Gazette.
My mother-in-law did not look at Dev.
She finished her welcome and thanked the sponsors, and the volunteers, and the junior racing committee.
Then, with a smile pinned to her face, she walked down the dock and stopped at Dev's table.
She said something short.
She put a white envelope on the cloth beside his plate.
Dev opened the flap with one thumb and looked inside.
"Thirty thousand," he said, in a carrying voice. "That's what you paid me before, Mrs. Rutledge."
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