Chapter 5: Dinner With the Dead

The Fenn house had the same green door.

I stood on the step on Thursday night with my phone recording in my coat pocket and Zane parked at the curb.

He had wanted to come inside.

I told him the one person Dalton's mother could not stand to see was a stranger.

Dalton opened the door in a clean white shirt.

"You came," he said, as though I had done him a favor.

The dining room was set for five, with the good china and a roast on the sideboard.

Dalton's mother sat at the head of the table in black, as she had every day of the last three years, I supposed.

My mother sat at her right hand, with her pearls on.

"Hallie," Dalton's mother said, without getting up. "You've lost weight."

"You changed the locks," I said.

"It was a hard time for everyone."

"Where's the fifth chair for?"

Nobody answered.

Then a door opened somewhere behind me, and a soft voice said, "Hi, sis."

I turned around slowly.

Cora stood in the doorway in the cream cardigan from the mall, with one hand under her belly.

Her eyes were wet and her mouth was trembling, and for a half second I admired the timing.

"I'm alive," she whispered. "Hallie, I'm alive."

I had practiced my face in the car for forty minutes.

"Cora," I said, and let my voice break.

She crossed the room and hugged me with her belly between us.

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