Chapter 24: A Year of Hannah Brooks

A year later, on the Tuesday night of the Garden stand, I stood in section 112 with a baby on my hip that wasn't mine.

"She's heavy," I said.

"She's fifteen pounds," Skylar said, "and she's furious about the noise."

The baby, who was five months old, looked at the arena with her whole face and screamed in delight.

Maggie, on my other side, in her green dress and her good earrings, held out a hand to take her.

"Give me the loud one," she said.

"She gets it from nobody I know," Skylar said, and winked at me.

She had a job at a small publishing house now, and an apartment with a window.

Her lawyer sent Trent a support request every month, and he paid it on time.

Trent lived in Ohio.

He sold insurance, and his mother lived with him in a rented duplex.

The Westchester house had gone to the label's lawyers in March, roof and all.

I hadn't seen either of them in eleven months.

I'd stopped looking for them in crowds.

Maggie bounced the baby and said, "You're shaking."

"I'm not."

"Your hands."

I looked down.

On my left hand there was nothing, and the white dent had been gone since December.

"They're not shaking," I said. "They're ready."

"Go on."

"I'm going."

"Hannah," Skylar said.

"Yes?"

"Be loud."

I went down the aisle, past the ushers, who knew me now, and through the door by the stage left wing.

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