Page 119 of Lemon Pound Cake Club

"You have every right to be."

"I'm angry that Camille lied to us." She paused. “I'm angry that you did too."

"I know, and I'm sorry."

"You let us become your friends and trust you."

The room fell silent. Danielle glanced around at everyone.

"I've been thinking about something since Camille was arrested."

She rested her hand on the table.

"The Lemon Pound Cake Club never stopped helping women."

Everyone looked at her.

"Danielle's right," Simone said softly.

"Camille helped me."

"And me," Nia added.

"The mission never changed."

"No," I said. "It didn't." I looked around the table. "That's why this hurts so much."

"Camille kept the meetings, the sisterhood."

"But she also used the trust this club was built on to destroy one innocent woman because she wanted a man that didn’t know how to leave his fiancée."

Nobody said a word.

"The Lemon Pound Cake Club didn't fail." I swallowed. "Camille did."

"She took something created to protect women and used its love and loyalty to bury a secret."

Miss Evelyn stood up slowly.

"That's exactly right."

She pulled an old tin box from her purse that looked similar to mine and placed it in the center of the table.

"I've been waiting a long time to bring this back."

I opened the lid. Inside were dozens of handwritten recipe cards in my grandmother's handwriting. Before my grandmother passed, she had given Mari and me our own recipe tins, each one handwritten. Beneath them lay the original notebook containing the club's founding traditions. She rested her hand on the box.

"The first president believed every woman deserved to be believed." She looked at each of us. "That never changed."

She turned her gaze to me.

"What changed was the person sitting at the head of the table."

No one spoke at first. Then Danielle stood, walked behind the chair at the head of the table, and pulled it out.

"This seat was never about power." She looked at me. "It was about responsibility."

Next, Jade stood up slowly.