The One He Never Held novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Toast

Lucille climbed the three steps to the stage without taking the hand Lionel held out for her.

She stood at the microphone with the program in her fingers.

The great hall was so quiet I could hear the candles.

"Lionel asked me to give the toast tonight," she said. "I wrote one."

She folded the program in half and laid it on the stand.

"I'm not going to give it."

Lionel's smile slipped. "Lucille. You're overwrought."

"I am very calm." Her voice was thin and clear. "I have been quiet for seven years. It has made me calm."

She looked out at the room.

"My husband Harold was dying that spring. Lionel ran the company for him. He brought me a letter to sign, and I signed it."

She turned her head, and her eyes found me.

"It ended the employment of an accountant named Walter Chamberlin. I signed it knowing the audit behind it was a sham."

Nobody coughed. Nobody moved.

"Tonight I am taking that signature back."

"Lucille," Lionel said, very softly.

"I have already given the police a signed statement. They are waiting for it to be heard."

Her voice finally cracked.

"Joanna, I'm sorry. I've no right to say it."

"You don't," I said.

I said it from the floor of the hall, clearly, with three hundred people between us.

"Then say his name," I told her. "Into the microphone. The way it should have been said seven years ago."

Lucille's hands shook on the stand.

She leaned toward the microphone.

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