They Gave Me a Check at Twelfth Night, So I Took Their Mardi Gras novel · Chapter 22 of 32

Chapter 22: The Grace

Clem's POV

Hortense came up the center aisle of the hall with her cane tapping the linoleum, and a hundred and fifty people watched her do it.

I stood at the head table with the baby in my pocket and my mother at my elbow.

She did not stop at the guests.

She came straight to me and took a long white envelope from her handbag.

"Clementine," she said. "I'd prefer to do this myself, rather than leave it to a deputy."

"That's kind."

"For your service."

She held it out.

It was the complaint, the one that named me a thief.

She said the words in the exact voice she had used on Twelfth Night.

The hall went still.

I looked at her thin face.

There were gray shadows under her eyes, and the pearls sat a little crooked, and I understood that she had not slept either.

I took the envelope.

I did not open it.

I walked to the head table, where the king cake stood in the center on my grandmother's platter.

I laid the envelope on the plate beside it, face up.

"Thank you for the bonus," I said. "Sit down, Hortense. You're at my right hand."

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