When Love Walked Away novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Luncheon
The woman in the blue dress had signed the card with a name I had seen on forty church newsletters.
"She's a friend of Gladys's," I said that night, on the porch.
"The one who sat next to her," Gabe said.
"The one who doesn't know what to do."
"Then tell her."
"I'm going to ask her."
"In front of Gladys?"
"Gladys has made sure everyone I know has seen me at my worst," I said. "She can watch this."
The fellowship hall of Gladys's church was a low beige building with a parking lot of white sedans.
The Annual Summer Luncheon was held on Saturday, as it had been for twenty years, whoever had died.
Inside, sixty women sat at round tables under paper lanterns, eating chicken salad off china plates.
A banner over the stage said Annual Summer Luncheon, and under it stood a podium and a microphone.
Gladys stood at the podium in a gray cardigan and her pearls.
"We thank our sponsors," she was saying, "and we remind everyone that this is a family church."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of When Love Walked Away are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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