Chapter 6: The Lakeshore Club

The Lakeshore Club had set out sixty chairs and white roses on every table.

A banner over the buffet said WELCOME HOME, BABY in blue letters.

Norm parked his pickup at the back of the lot, and I looked at the man in the passenger seat.

"I'll be right here," Ward said. "Text me one word and I come in."

"Don't come in until I do."

"Understood."

He had borrowed a clean shirt from my father.

It was a size too short in the arms, and he did not complain about it.

I carried Posy in the front wrap with a blanket from the hospital over her.

My father took the diaper bag and walked half a step behind me.

Inside, the room went quiet in pieces.

Heads turned at the first table, then at the second, and then the whole hall.

At the center table sat Brent in a pressed blue shirt.

Beside him, in a cream dress, with her hair curled, sat Summer.

She was holding her baby.

He was wrapped in an orange fleece blanket with a white fox tail.

Brent's mother stood up with a champagne flute.

"Corrine," she said. "You came. Everyone, this is my daughter-in-law."

She said it so warmly that three women at the next table put their hands on their hearts.

"Come sit by us, dear. We saved you a chair."

I looked at the chair.

It was at the end of the center table, a little behind Summer's, where a bridesmaid would sit.

"No, thank you," I said.

I walked straight across the floor to Summer.

She looked up, and her face went soft and sorry and ready.

"Cor," she whispered. "I'm so glad you came. I wanted to..."

"I'll have that, please."

I took the corner of the fox blanket and I unwrapped it from around her baby.

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