Chapter 24: First

Nobody sat down at the long table until I did, and I didn't sit down for a while.

I stood beside the little armchair at the head of it and looked at the faces.

There were seventy people on benches under the oak, in the last gold light, with plates of bread and roast chicken and bowls of tomatoes.

The foreman had washed his hands for the first time that year.

"Boss," he said. "Sit."

"Not there," I said.

I took the chair at the middle of the table, between Malcolm and the tasting room girl, and left my mother's chair empty at the head.

Chandler came down the table with a bottle in each hand.

He had put on a suit, and kept the boots.

"I'd like to pour," he said.

The tasting room girl sucked in her breath.

I held out my glass.

Chandler poured it, very slowly, a finger's width, and not a drop reached the cloth.

"Good," I said.

"I've been practicing," Chandler said. "On the sorting line, with water."

Somebody whooped.

He went down the table, and filled every glass, and he took a long time over it.

Nobody laughed at him, and nobody said his name kindly.

But the foreman nodded as he passed, and that was a great deal.

They ate and drank until the lanterns came on in the oak, and the singing started.

At eleven, Malcolm stood, and held out his hand.

"Mrs. Ward," he said.

"It's Whitman," I said. "You can be a Whitman, if you like."

"I'd like that very much," he said.

We walked up the lane to the guest house in the dark, with the singing behind us getting smaller.

At the green door I stopped, with my hand on the latch.

He stood on the step below, and didn't move.

I had told him not tonight, on this exact step, weeks before.

"Come in," I said.

He came in.

I shut the door, and turned the lock, and leaned against it, and for a moment we only looked at each other in the light from the little lamp.

"I'm going to take this dress off," I said, "and I'd like you to watch."

He swallowed.

"Yes, ma'am."

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Was Always Second. Until I Left. from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.