Chapter 22: Dinner at Seven

The dining table seated twenty, and on Sunday night every chair had a Bennet in it.

Noah counted them from the kitchen door with a basket of bread on his hip.

George's sister sat at the far end, a retired judge with white hair and a voice like a closing gavel.

Two cousins from Boston.

An uncle on the company board, red-faced and cheerful, who had already said "the baker's boy" twice, fondly, and been glared at by Troy.

A pair of great-aunts.

Four people from George's office, in suits.

His mother sat at George's right hand in a green dress, calm as water.

Noah had baked the bread himself.

It was the only thing he had been sure of all day.

"Sit," Henry murmured, appearing at his elbow. "You look like a man about to be hanged."

"I feel like one."

"You don't have to say anything."

"I know."

"You don't have to say it tonight."

"I know." Noah put down the basket. "Which is why I'm going to."

Henry looked at him, and then, very quietly, he straightened Noah's collar.

"We'll be right here," he said.

They sat in a row along the window side.

William on his left, Troy and Henry on his right, as if they'd rehearsed.

Soup came, and fish, and the talk went round and round.

Business, mostly.

The weather in Boston.

A dispute about a boat.

Noah ate nothing.

When the plates for the main were cleared, George tapped his glass with a spoon.

"Thank you all for coming," he said. "I don't make speeches at my own table.

"But I watched a young man stand in front of four hundred strangers and say a hard true thing in a steady voice.

"I decided I'd like all of you to hear it from him."

Twenty faces turned.

Noah stood up.

His knees felt like water.

On his left William took his hand under the table, and held on.

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