Chapter 14: The Benefit

Mireille's POV

On Saturday night I walked back into my father's house.

A banner hung over the front steps: THE PEABODY FOUNDATION BENEFIT.

Under it were three hundred people in evening clothes and a row of cameras behind a rope.

Roz walked on my left with her briefcase, and Constance walked on my right with her cane.

"Sign nothing," Roz said. "I have a call in to the lab that printed that report."

"I haven't had an answer yet."

"Then we'll wait for it," I said.

The hall still had the black and white tile I had learned to walk on.

The foundation had hung a second portrait of my father on the stair, and he looked down at the guests with his white forelock.

I had not stood in that hall in three and a half years.

I had not known I could miss a floor.

"Mrs. Hayes," a guest murmured to her husband. "The one who was shoved."

"I'm Mireille Peabody," I said to her, and kept walking.

Chantal came down the hall in a cream gown with the bracelet on her wrist.

"Mireille," she said, and kissed my cheek in front of everyone. "You came. I knew you would."

"Where is he?"

"Backstage with Sammy. He's been very good about all of it."

"I'm sure he has."

"You haven't signed."

"I haven't."

"Then enjoy the speeches," Chantal said. "I think you'll find them educational."

Roz steered me into the ballroom, and we took three chairs in the front row.

I understood why.

It was the first row in the room, with nothing between me and the stage.

The lights went down.

A screen above the stage lit with the foundation's slideshow, and my father's face filled it.

He was young in the first photograph, with his sleeves rolled and the forelock white against dark hair.

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