Chapter 20: The Reading

Nessa's POV

The seat Calvin saved me had a card on it that said DEE.

I sat in it, in the front row of the institute's atrium, with my mother on my left and Keith on her other side.

Bea held her purse in her lap with both hands.

Under my chair was a canvas bag with twenty-one notebooks in it and a black recorder on top.

The stage was white and gold, with the banner of Calvin's face behind the lectern.

The committee chair, a silver-haired woman in blue, read the citation in a warm, practiced voice.

"For the Landmark Study of the Decade, the Founders' Prize goes to Dr. Calvin Saltonstall and Dr. Lydia Frane."

The room stood and applauded.

Calvin came up the steps grinning, with his hair pushed back, and Lydia followed in champagne silk with her hand at his elbow.

The director sat at the head table and did not look at me.

In the third row Lydia's father clapped with the quiet satisfaction of a man watching a plan finish.

Calvin took the lectern and tapped the microphone.

"I'll be quick," he said. "I never am."

People laughed.

"I want to thank someone who made all of this possible. She's the most important participant in the history of this field, and she's here tonight."

He found me, and his whole face went soft.

"Dee. Come up."

I stood.

I picked up the canvas bag and walked up the three steps to the stage.

The applause thinned and stopped.

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