Queen Never Cry novel · Chapter 6 of 32

Chapter 6: Mama in the Ballroom

Posy ran.

She ran down the center aisle in her bare feet with her coat flapping open, past the security men, who stopped dead.

She ran between the round tables where three hundred people held their breath.

I came off the stage so fast I almost lost my grandmother's shoe.

She hit me at the waist.

I dropped to my knees on the ballroom carpet in the emerald silk.

Her arms went around my neck and she sobbed my name into my hair.

"Mama, Mama, Mama."

"I've got you."

"You came. Lydia said you wouldn't come. She said you were bad."

"I'm here."

My voice sounded steady in my own ears, which surprised me.

Somewhere above us, a camera flashed.

Then another, and another.

A woman at table four started to cry into her napkin.

An old man I had known since I was twelve stood up with his hand over his mouth.

I held my daughter's face in both hands.

She had a smear of chocolate on her cheek, and her eyes were wet and huge, and she smelled of the bath.

"Listen to me," I said, low. "I need you to be brave for a few minutes."

"I don't want to be brave. I want to stay with you."

"I know."

I opened my fist and showed her the key.

It lay on my palm, gold and small and warm.

"Do you know what this is?"

She touched it with one finger.

"It's Great-Grandpa's. It's yours."

"It's ours," I said.

I put the chain over her curls and let the key fall against her pajama top.

"You keep it safe for me, and when I come to get you, it opens a door."

Her eyes went round.

"What door?"

"A big one."

She wrapped her fist around the key.

Then a shadow fell over both of us, and I smelled the mint on his breath.

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