He Gave Her My Home, So I Took Back My Life novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Edith's Chair

Graham held his donor dinner on Saturday, in my dining room, with the good china.

Nobody had told me.

I found out because the caterer came to the kitchen door at four and asked where to set up for eight.

"Eight?" I said.

"The seating chart says Mr. Rowntree, Mrs. Rowntree, and six guests."

"Which Mrs. Rowntree?"

She checked the page.

"Delphine."

I thanked her and took the clipboard and read it twice.

My name was nowhere on it.

I went to the pantry coat closet, where I had hung one dress since the funeral and never taken it down.

It was my grandmother's green velvet, the one she wore to every Christmas supper for thirty years.

It still smelled of her lilac powder.

At seven fifteen I stood in the front hall in that dress with my hair pinned up the way she wore hers.

The bolt at the top of the stairs was drawn back for the guests.

Through the dining room doors I could see the long table lit with candles, and eight chairs.

Graham sat at the head.

Delphine sat at the foot in a cream silk blouse, across from a silver-haired woman in a gold necklace who was nodding at her.

I walked in.

The talk stopped, one voice at a time.

"Nora," Graham said. He smiled with every tooth. "Sweetheart. We didn't think you'd be well enough to join us."

"I'm not unwell," I said. "I'm hungry."

A man laughed and stopped himself.

I did not walk toward the empty chair next to Delphine.

I walked to the head of the table, past Graham's shoulder, and put my hand on the high carved chair at the other end of it, the one with arms, where my grandmother had sat for sixty years.

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