Chapter 7: Rehearsal Dinner

"I'll be there at noon with the certificates," I told the loan officer.

"Wonderful. Mr. Pflueger will be pleased."

"I'm sure he will."

I hung up and found Hamish watching me over the tailor's shoulder.

"Tomorrow, at the reception," I said. "He'll put the papers in front of me with two hundred guests watching and a pen in my hand."

"What will you do?"

"I haven't decided."

That was a lie.

I had decided in the car, but I wanted to see if the plan survived one night.

The rehearsal dinner was held in the back room of an Italian restaurant Dalton liked.

Thirty people sat at a long table under strings of lights.

His friends from the builders' association, Hailey's coworkers from the dental office, two cousins, the pastor and his wife.

Nobody there knew yet what Hailey was to my husband.

They thought she was the sister who had come to help.

They had been told to think so, and to smile.

Hamish sat beside me in a dark jacket, and his knee pressed lightly against mine under the table.

It was an accident of the chairs.

Neither of us moved away.

I noticed every second of it.

"You're staring at the bread," he said quietly.

"I'm thinking."

"You're thinking with a knife in your hand."

I put down the butter knife, and his mouth twitched.

At the far end of the table, Hailey sat holding the baby in a white blanket.

She had changed into a green dress and curled her hair, and she looked fresh and radiant for a woman who had been bleeding on Wednesday night.

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