Chapter 3
Spring arrived late that year,
bringing rain that washed the gray snow into the gutters.
I was sitting in the office,
reviewing the quarterly budget,
when I heard a familiar voice in the dining area.
It was soft,
and it was laced with a fragile kind of desperation.
I stood up,
and I walked to the doorway.
Lydia Vale was standing near the entrance,
holding a wet umbrella,
and looking around the room like a lost bird.
Her beige cardigan was replaced by a worn raincoat,
and her sharp eyes looked hollow.
I stepped out of the office,
and I walked toward her.
She saw me,
and she flinched.
It was a small movement,
but it told me everything I needed to know about her life since the trial.
She had lost her salon,
and she had lost her daughter.
She was alone,
and she was carrying the weight of a lifetime of bad choices.
I stopped a few feet away from her,
and I crossed my arms.
I did not offer her a table,
and I did not offer her soup.
I waited for her to speak,
because she had come to my territory.
She looked at my apron,
and she looked at the sign above the door.
She swallowed hard,
and she tried to force a smile.
It failed,
and it turned into a grimace.
She said she needed a job,
and she said no one in town would hire her.
Her reputation was ruined,
because she had testified against her own flesh and blood.
She thought I would pity her,
because she had helped put Rebecca away.
She thought that made us allies,
but she was wrong.
We were not allies,
and we were not friends.
We were two women who had loved the same cowardly man,
and we were two women who had survived the same vicious girl.
But our similarities ended there.
I looked at her wet shoes,
and I looked at her trembling hands.
I told her that the kitchen relied on volunteers,
and we did not have the budget to hire staff.
She stared at me,
and her lower lip quivered.
She asked if she could volunteer,
just to have a place to go during the day.
I looked around the room,
at the people eating quietly,
and at the safety we had built.
I told her no.
It was a simple word,
and it was a final word.
She gasped,
and she asked me how I could be so cruel.
She reminded me that this place was supposed to be for everyone,
and she reminded me that she was hungry too.
I stepped closer to her,
and I lowered my voice.
I told her that my kitchen was a sanctuary,
and I would not let the architect of my son's misery walk through the doors.
She had orchestrated the lie,
and she had watched her daughter weaponize it.
Testifying at the end did not erase the beginning,
and it did not buy her a seat at my table.
May you like
I told her to leave,
and I told her not to come back.
