Chapter 18: Play

Maddie held the microphone with both hands, and it squealed.

She waited until the squeal died.

"My name is Madeline Kruse," she said. "Most of you have known me since I was in a car seat."

Her voice came out of the speakers thin and steady.

"I'm going to play you one thing I recorded in my car. Only one, and then I'll sit down."

She held her phone to the microphone and pressed it.

"April twentieth. Four-twelve p.m. It's Easter. I'm in my car in Mom's driveway with the window down because I can't breathe."

The hall had gone so quiet that I could hear the fryer ticking in the kitchen.

On the recording, her breath shook.

"Brandon followed me into the pantry while Mom was carving. He stood in the door so I couldn't get out."

The recorded Maddie swallowed.

"He said, 'Your mother loves me, Mad. Nobody's taking your side.' He smiled when he said it so I'd have to smile back."

Behind her voice, through the open car window, an electric carving knife whirred in the dining room.

Over the knife a woman laughed at something somebody said.

It was my mother's laugh.

I looked up the aisle at her.

She had her eyes closed.

"Edited," Brandon said.

He said it loud, from the head table, with a short unhappy laugh.

"She cuts these up. She records people and edits them. I've told Dee, I've told everyone. This is exactly what I meant."

Heads turned toward him.

A few of them nodded.

I stood up.

"Maddie," I said. "May I?"

She looked at me for one long second and handed me the microphone.

I had not planned what I would say.

"Brandon says she edits recordings," I said. "I think we should hear one that I made."