Chapter 16: The Empty Plate

The dining room at the Winterbourne house seated twenty, and Dalton had set four places at the far end of the table.

He sat at the head, with Camille at his right hand and Alana at his left.

He gave me the chair across from him, under the window.

A single candle burned between us.

"I'm so glad you came, brother," Dalton said.

"I'm not your brother."

"Of course not." He smiled warmly. "Not yet, anyway. Cook, the soup."

A woman in a white apron brought the tureen from the kitchen.

She ladled steaming bisque into four bowls, and the smell of butter and crab filled the room.

Dalton's bowl came last.

He lifted his spoon and held it above the soup.

He had a good, practiced way of doing it, with his head tipped down and his eyes half shut.

I knew the motion by heart.

It was the one he used with an empty glass.

The panel in my eye read 1.7, and sat there.

Alana picked up her spoon and put it down again.

"I can't eat," she said.

"You should," Dalton said. "You've been crying all day, sweetheart. It's only soup."

"Alana is fine," Camille said.

She had not touched hers either.

She was looking across the candle at Dalton's bowl.

"Dalton," she said. "Eat."

"Cam, I'm sick, I'm not very hungry."

"One spoonful."

"My stomach..."

"One."

The silence went on for a long time.

The cook stood by the sideboard with the tureen in both arms and did not leave.

Camille turned her head.

"How long have you worked in this house?" she asked her.

"Nineteen years, ma'am."

"In nineteen years, how many times has Mr. Reeve eaten at this table?"

The cook looked at Dalton.

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