Chapter 3
The MPs didn't leave. They just stepped back half a step, enough that their shoulders were no longer squared toward our table. The younger one slid my ID back across the white linen without looking at me directly, his gloved hands careful around the edge of the gold-rimmed plate.
General Bennett didn't stay hovering. He gave my husband a brief nod, then turned toward his own table a few feet away. I watched him pull out his chair and sit. He didn't look away from us, but he picked up his water glass like he was giving us room. That was worse somehow. The whole room was still paying attention, but now there was no authority figure standing there to explain why.
I was still standing. My legs felt locked behind the chair that had caused all of it.
Someone had pulled it out for me earlier, before Mom had come over with her place card. It sat half-angled from the table, the navy velvet seat empty, one arm catching the light from the chandelier. For a second I thought about staying on my feet. It would have been easier to just say I needed air and walk out toward the hallway and not come back.
Instead I set my clutch down.
I did it deliberately. I placed the silver glitter clutch flat on the linen to the right of the plate, the metal frame clicking softly against the table. Not tucked on my lap, not held against my dress. On the table, like I belonged there. My hands were shaking a little so I pressed my palms down for a second to steady them, felt the cool beading under my fingers, then pulled the chair out another inch and sat down.
The chair was lower than I'd expected. The table came up higher, the floral centerpiece suddenly right at eye level, red and pink blooms dense between me and Mom.
Mom didn't move at first. She stood opposite me on the other side of the small round table, her pearl necklace caught in her fingers. She'd been holding the place card when she came over, and now I saw it still pinched between her thumb and forefinger, bent slightly where she'd been gripping it. She looked at the empty chair next to me, then at General Bennett's table, then back at me.
There was nowhere else for her to go. The place card had her name on it, and the other chairs at the senior command table were already taken or clearly marked. If she left, everyone would watch her leave. If she stayed, she had to sit across from me.
She sat. She lowered herself slowly onto the edge of the velvet seat, her knees angled just off the table, her hand never leaving her pearls. She set the place card down face-down next to her plate but didn't slide it toward the center. It sat there irrelevant, a little white rectangle against the linen. She didn't look at me. She smoothed the napkin in her lap twice, sharply, and then folded her hands.
My husband sat last. He pulled out the chair between us, the one that put him at the side of the round table, directly in the gap. I heard the chair legs scrape against the red patterned carpet. He sat and his hands went straight to the table edge, fingers curling over the white cloth on either side of his plate. His knuckles went pale. He leaned just enough toward me that his shoulder brushed the edge of my chair.
He didn't look at my mom when he whispered. "I'm sorry," he said, low enough that only I could hear it over the murmur of the room. His voice caught on the second word. "I should have said something faster."
I didn't answer right away. I could feel his hand wanting to move toward mine, but he kept it locked on the table. I gave a tiny nod, just enough that he would see it in his peripheral vision. It wasn't forgiveness. It was acknowledgment that I'd heard him, that we were still on the same side of this tiny circle of linen.
Around us, the ballroom had not recovered. At the next table over, two officers in dress uniform were openly staring, one with his mouth slightly open, his wife beside him whispering behind her champagne flute. Another spouse further back had turned her chair a few degrees to get a better view. No one was pretending not to look anymore. I heard a low ripple of murmuring move across the room, not loud, just enough to fill the space where the band had paused between songs.
A waiter in a black vest had been approaching our table with a tray of water glasses. He stopped three feet away, hesitated, and then stepped back, his tray tilted slightly. Another server near the bookshelves made eye contact with him and shook her head once. Service had paused around us, like the staff had been told to wait until whatever had happened was fully settled.
The crystal chandelier above us threw warm light down onto the gold rims, onto Mom's pearls, onto the silver frame of my clutch. The floral centerpiece between us blocked a straight line of sight, so I saw Mom in pieces — her blonde hair, her hand at her throat, the set of her jaw.
May you like
We were all seated now. The three of us around the small white-linen table that I had been told was reserved for senior command. General Bennett was seated at his own table, his gaze level and even, not intervening anymore but clearly observing. The MPs remained a half-step back by the wood paneling, at ease but present.
A different waiter finally moved forward, carefully, and began to fill the champagne flutes one by one without a word. The sound of liquid hitting glass was the only thing at our table. None of us spoke.
