Chapter 22: The Table

Sunday dinner at lot nine started with a casserole dish and a nervous man on the steps.

Nolan Stroud stood at the trailer door in a shirt he had ironed himself, holding a bag of groceries nobody had asked for.

"You didn't have to bring anything," Dani said.

"Your mother told me on the phone to bring nothing," he said. "So I brought bread."

Her mother opened the door behind her and looked him over.

"Is that the good bakery?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then you can come in."

The trailer was warm and loud and smelled like onions.

Through the thin wall Dani could hear the old man from lot fourteen arguing about gravy with the two sisters from the double-wide.

The woman with the baby had brought a pie.

Glenn had brought a folding table and a very large bag of chips and no explanation.

Nolan took the chair her mother pointed to, at the narrow kitchen table.

Then he got up again and carried plates to the counter without being asked.

Dani leaned in the doorway and tried not to laugh.

The little television on the counter was on with the sound low.

"...Preston Halloway resigned as a director on Friday," the anchor said. "The county prosecutor has opened a forgery inquiry."

"Former communications chief Tatum Kensley walked into the prosecutor's office on Saturday with her lawyer and a phone full of messages."

Her mother turned it up.

"...is expected to testify. Neither Mr. Halloway nor his attorneys have commented."

"Good," her mother said, and turned it back down.

Imogen Halloway arrived at five-thirty in a black car.

She stood in the door of the trailer in a navy coat, with a casserole dish in her gloved hands.

The whole kitchen went quiet.

"I was told there would be dinner," she said.

"By who?" Dani's mother said.

"By your daughter."

"She didn't tell me."

"I know," Imogen said. "I rang the bell anyway."

Her mother looked her over, from the pearls down to the dish.