Chapter 18: The Speakers

The sound technician looked at Gwen.

Gwen's smile stayed fixed on her face, and she gave him a small, kind shake of her head.

"Sweetheart, there's no need for any of that tonight."

"Plug it in," I said to him.

He looked at my face, at my daughter, and at the crack across the watch.

Then he took it from my hand and ran a cable from its side port into his board.

"It's an audio file," he said, puzzled. "Do I just..."

"Play it. All of it."

"Erin," Gwen said, and her voice sharpened. "Stop this."

He pressed the key.

For a second there was only a hiss in the big speakers.

Then a tiny sound came out of the ceiling, thin and furious and new.

A baby crying.

Every head in the ballroom turned toward the one in my arms, then back to the speakers.

Beside me, my mother put her hand over her mouth.

"Hi, Bean," my own voice said, shaky and quiet, from the ceiling of the Marlowe Hotel. "I'm your mama. Don't be scared."

A woman at the nearest table pressed a napkin to her lips.

A man's voice cut in, flat and bored.

"It's done. Tell Ms. Dearing it's a girl."

Gwen's name rang out of the speakers in a stranger's voice, and three hundred people heard it.

The sound went on a few seconds more, to the threat about any cop.

When it ended, nobody clapped.

Nobody moved.

Gwen laughed.

It was a good laugh, light and tired, a woman at the end of a long evening.

"Oh, my God," she said to the room. "Everyone, I'm so sorry. This is what I was afraid of."

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