Chapter 18: The Birthday Party

Claire's POV

The house in Belle Meade had yellow balloons tied to every post of its iron gate.

A banner across the portico said Happy Eighth Birthday, Poppy, in letters taller than my arm.

Willem had flown down beside me that morning and made me eat breakfast on the plane.

Now he stood on the gravel with his hands in his pockets.

"I can wait by the cars," he said.

"Come in."

"Lydia will make a thing of me."

"Then she'll be making it in front of everyone."

He took my elbow, and we went up the steps together.

The garden room at the back of the house had been cleared for sixty guests.

There were round tables under white cloths and a three-tier cake.

A screen on the far wall showed a slideshow of Poppy at every age.

I knew most of the faces.

Anne's cousins sat near the front.

Two of the mothers from the school gate stood by the punch bowl.

One of them lifted her hand to me, a little, at chest height.

Poppy's grandmother sat at the head table in a gray silk dress with her hands folded.

She met my eyes once and gave the smallest nod.

"Claire!"

Poppy came across the floor in a party dress and a paper crown, and she hit me exactly where the baby was.

"Oof," I said.

"Sorry. Hi. Aunt Lydia said you weren't coming."

"I said I'd see you soon."

I held out the box I had carried from Chicago.

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