Chapter 17: Gift of Life

"I recorded her," Carl said. "All of it, from the doorway."

We were standing in the underground garage of the glass tower, and his voice bounced off the concrete.

"You told me you'd be right outside."

"I was. I started it when she said she wanted you alone."

He turned the phone over and showed me the screen.

The file was a gray bar with a date and a length, forty-one minutes.

"I'm sorry. I should have said last night."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I didn't know what I was holding. I thought, if I tell her, she'll have to decide whether to use it."

He looked at me.

"I didn't want to put that on you, the night you heard it."

I thought about that for a moment, standing between a pillar and his truck.

I had spent two years being told what I could handle, and by whom.

"Thank you for not deciding for me," I said. "Next time, tell me the same night."

"Next time, I will."

"Is her voice clear?"

"Every word," he said. "Including 'honey.'"

On Saturday I wore my mother's gray silk dress, with my hair down, and I did not wear the pearls Cornelia had given me.

The Carnegie Music Hall had its chandeliers lit and three hundred people in black tie.

There were white ranunculus on every table.

I looked at them for a long moment, and I knew whose order they were.

Carl found me by the coat check.

He wore a rented tuxedo that fit his shoulders badly.

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