Chapter 4: The Envelope

A woman came out of the room next door pushing an IV pole.

I closed the envelope before she could see.

"Not here," I said.

He took me down two floors to the hospital chapel.

It was a small carpeted room with blue glass and six empty pews. Somebody had left a juice box on the altar rail.

He shut the door.

I sat down in the second pew and slid the prints out onto my knees.

There were four of them.

The hallway. The red exit sign. A man's broad back in flannel and a girl tucked under his arm.

The girl had her head thrown back. She was laughing so hard her eyes were shut.

The last one was the two of them going through a door with a B on it.

I stared at it.

Then I laughed.

It burst out of me, loud, and it bounced off the blue glass.

I couldn't stop.

I put my hand over my mouth and it leaked out around my fingers.

Jameson stood in the aisle and watched me.

"This is funny to you."

"Oh my God." I wiped my eyes. "Jameson. This is Ollie."

"I don't know who that is."

"You'd know if you'd asked me."

I held up the first print.

"Ollie Bramlett. He was the engineer at the studio on upper King. He's gay. He was engaged to his husband back then."

"They had a cake tasting that Saturday."

He didn't move.

"That's Studio B," I said.

"A girl from my theory class needed a lullaby on her demo. She couldn't pay much, so we went in after the paid sessions ended."

"At one in the morning."

"That's when studios are cheap."

I looked down at the girl in the print.

My hair was in a braid. I was wearing his old gray sweater.

"I'd taken the test that afternoon," I said. "Two of them. I was so scared I threw up in the studio bathroom."

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