The door opened.

I stepped out first — unhurried, composed, in a dress I had designed myself, entirely unbothered by the hundred faces already turning.

And then, one after another, my three seven-year-old children stepped out of the car behind me.

Chapter 6 — The Silence

The instant Grayson saw the first boy’s face, the smirk fell off his own.

A silence went across that lawn like a change in air pressure, and then the whispering started, low and fast, running table to table.

Because there was no mistaking them, and everyone could see it at once.