Chapter 5: A Seat and a Roof

The Harrowgate dining table seated twenty-two, and they had set it for seven.

I counted the forks at my place.

There were three of them, and a spoon above the plate.

A card in a silver holder had my name on it, in a hand I knew was Mrs. Harrowgate's.

Quillan, Rhea.

It didn't say Harrowgate.

I had stood in the hall for a full minute before I came in, and I was glad she had written it that way.

"I can't tell if I'm supposed to cry or run," Sabina whispered beside me.

"Eat the bread," I whispered.

"I don't know which one's the bread plate," she said.

"The little one on your left. The bread goes on the left. The water goes on the right."

"How do you know that?"

"Eight years waiting tables," I said. "I know where everything goes."

Donald Harrowgate sat at the head of the table in a dark cardigan.

A pill case sat beside his water glass, and his hand wouldn't hold still on the cloth.

Constance sat at the other end with her eyes on Sabina and on nothing else.

Garner had taken the chair next to mine.

I hadn't picked it.

Conor was across from me, in the seat nearest the door.

He had a legal pad under his elbow, because Donald had asked him to take notes.

He hadn't looked at me since the soup arrived.

I'd noticed that.

I'd noticed, too, that he had turned his chair six inches so he didn't have to.

"I want to say something before we eat," Donald said.

His voice was thin and very clear.

"For twenty-four years I have set a place at this table every Sunday for a girl I didn't know."

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