Chapter 10: Her Own Room

Pippa looked at her mother before I could answer.

"When did you decide that?" she asked.

Celia took her hand off the courtyard wall.

"We agreed before the invitations went out," she said.

My niece stayed beside me, very still.

"Does Dad want this?" Pippa asked.

"Yes," Celia said.

"So do I."

I was angry enough to want her to sound less certain.

She had spent the weekend making my divorce a family defect.

"You could have told her," I said.

Celia looked at her daughter.

"We wanted you to have your wedding first," she told Pippa.

The dining room door opened behind her.

A waiter appeared holding a basket of bread.

"We're not ready for dessert yet," Celia told him.

The waiter looked down at the bread.

"Neither is the kitchen," he said, and went back inside.

Pippa sat on the low courtyard wall.

I sat beside her and kept my hand near hers.

"Is somebody else involved?" she asked Celia.

"No," my sister told her.

"There's nobody else."

Pippa looked at me and then back at her mother.

"Then why were you so horrible to her?" she asked.

Celia didn't answer immediately.

Through the window, I could see Gregory leaving the table.

Miles said something to him and pointed toward us.

"I don't want to discuss your aunt in front of you," Celia said.

"You've been doing that all weekend," Pippa told her.

I could have loved my niece for that sentence alone.

Gregory came through the door carrying the silver heart.

It was taller than the doorway, so he turned it sideways and stuck halfway.

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