“Honey, where’s your mom’s watch? Grandma said she gave it to you in July. I thought you’d wear it today.”
The table went quiet.
Molly looked at her plate.
“Tara has it,” she said.
I felt it like a hand on my throat.
Beth turned her head slowly down the long table.
Tara had heard.
She rose, smiling, her wrist lifted a little in the light.
“Oh, this? I’m keeping it safe for her. She’s not ready for it.”
“It was a gift, Tara.”
“Beth, I love you, I do, but there’s something the family should know.” Tara’s voice carried the way a good receptionist’s does, pleasant and clear all the way to the back. “I didn’t want to say it today, of all days. But I can’t carry it alone anymore.”
Cole put his face down.
I stood up.
Across the room, Jean touched my sleeve.
Not yet, her eyes said.
12:46.
I sat.
“On Friday,” Tara said, “twelve hundred dollars disappeared from our bedroom. Cash we’d been saving for a washing machine. Three hundred of it was found in Molly’s backpack.”
A small gasp went through the room.
I heard a spoon hit a saucer.
Someone’s chair creaked.
“Tara,” Beth said. “Stop.”
“I’m not angry. I’m heartbroken. We’ve all been so careful with Molly since Karen. We’ve given her everything.” Tara’s eyes shone. She laid a hand on Molly’s shoulder, and I saw her fingers close, hard, around the thin yellow sleeve. “Molly, sweetheart. Say it where your mother can hear. Tell everyone you’re sorry.”
Molly didn’t move.
Her cheeks had gone white, and her lip shook, but her hands lay flat on the table, the way Jean had taught her.
“I didn’t take it,” she said.
“Molly.”
“I didn’t.”
“Where would a girl like her get three hundred dollars?” Tara said to the room, lightly, as though it were the most reasonable question in the world. “Where would a girl like her get a Cartier? She’d lose it. She’d sell it. Honestly, I’m just trying to protect Karen’s memory.”
Beth’s face changed.
She stood so abruptly that her chair skidded.
“Tara, that’s Karen’s watch.”
“Scott gave it to me.”
“He did not.”
“Scott?”
Every head in the hall turned.
Eighty people.
The screen behind us showed Karen at the pier, laughing.
Tara held out her arm toward me, palm up, like a woman waiting for a rescue.
“Tell them, honey. Tell them I’m looking after your daughter.”
My mouth was dry as gravel.
12:55.
I saw Pastor Dan lower his cup.
