Six Left Behind Daughters and One Returned White Box Fifteen Years Later

Brenda pointed a silver pen at the seating chart. She told us the head table was set for twelve, but we still needed to finalize the two tables nearest the podium.

Adele looked at the diagram and said we should keep those tables reserved for my brothers and their wives.

The phone on Brenda’s desk buzzed with a loud, demanding hum. She apologized with a quick smile and answered it on speaker, her fingers hovering over her keyboard.

A woman with a sharp, clipped voice spoke through the line, introducing herself as Maya’s personal assistant. She said she was calling from Chicago to finalize the arrangements for Mr. and Mrs. Harrison’s party.

“We require table number one,” the voice on the phone said. “It needs to sit ten people, and Mr. Harrison expects a direct line of sight to the podium for the toasts.”

Brenda blinked and looked up at us, her pen freezing mid-air. She asked the caller to hold for one moment.

Adele sat very still, her hands folding together in her lap. She looked at Brenda, then down at the blue carpet, her face flushing a deep, hot red.

“My mother’s assistant,” Adele said, her voice dropping to a quiet whisper. “She doesn’t even call herself.”

Brenda cleared her throat and asked if she should make the change. She said she had been told by the Chicago office that Mr. Harrison was donating the champagne for the toast.

I looked at the neat pencil lines on the chart, where my brothers’ names had already been written in Adele’s careful hand.

“Leave the tables as they are,” I said.

The planner hesitated, her finger hovering over the hold button. She asked if I was sure, since the assistant had mentioned a five hundred dollar deposit for the bar tab was riding on the seating.

“We will pay the five hundred dollars ourselves,” I said.

By four in the afternoon, the sky had turned the color of wet slate. Jerome was kneeling on the worn linoleum of my kitchen, a brass hinge held between his teeth, while I held the loose cabinet door in place.

He took the hinge out of his mouth and set it on the floor. He used a short screwdriver to tighten the bottom screw, his shoulder pressing against the garbage can.