Next Time Away novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: Two Hundred Chairs
The church hall held two hundred folding chairs, and every one of them was full.
A photograph of Soren's brother stood on an easel at the front, framed in black, with a wreath of green pine around it.
Dagny sat in the front row in a cream dress.
Soren sat beside her, gray in the face, with a printed program trembling in his hand.
Elsie sat on her mother's other side in a green sweater, swinging her legs.
I stood at the back with Greta in the carrier on my chest.
Jonas stood against the wall by the door, with his cap in his hands and his eyes on the floor.
The aunt who had once given me a folding chair sat three rows from the front.
I had spoken to her the night before.
She had listened, and then she had said, "When you nod, I'll take that child for cocoa. And I'll tell you something, Tove. Half this room has wondered for two years."
The harbormaster sat halfway back, with seven old men in a row beside him, in their church coats.
Soren's mother stood at the lectern.
She was a tall woman in black, and she held a glass of cider in a steady hand.
"We are here for my son," she said. "We are here because for two years this community has carried a hole in it."
Her eyes found the back of the hall, and Jonas.
"I raise this glass to the man we lost," she said. "And to the man who took him, who still walks our streets, and breathes, and mends our boats."
A murmur went through the room.
Nobody turned to look at Jonas.
Everybody knew exactly where he was standing.
"May God forgive him," she said. "I can't."
Two hundred glasses rose.
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