Chapter 15: The Preston Table

The Preston dining room had a table for twenty and four chairs set at one end of it.

Theron's father sat at the head, a tall gray man with Cade's eyes and none of his patience.

Theron's mother sat at his right, in pearls, with her hands folded beside a plate she hadn't touched.

Theron sat across from her, and he did not look at me once.

Cade pulled out my chair, and I sat in it with the plain gold band turned toward the light.

"So," said Theron's mother. "This is her."

"This is my wife," Cade said.

"This is the girl my son brought to Easter for five years."

She looked me over slowly, from my hair to my hands.

"And now she's wearing your grandmother's ring."

"It fits her," Cade said.

"I'm sure it does. Things do, when they're taken."

A maid set soup in front of me, and I picked up my spoon.

"Do you know what a Preston wife does?" Theron's mother asked.

"I'm learning."

"She does not marry the brother in a county office with a woman in a yellow coat for a witness."

"Yes, I know about the coat."

She tilted her head.

"Where did you come from, dear? Remind me."

"A lumberyard family," I said. "My father fixes trucks. My brother stacks boards."

"How nice for them."

"It is nice. They pay their taxes and they don't send maids to carry their cruelty to the table."

The maid, who had just come back with bread, froze.

Theron's father made a small dry sound in his throat that might have been a cough.

"She has a tongue," he said.

"She has a lot more than that," Cade said.

"I'm not speaking to you."

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