Chapter 6: March Third

The cameras clicked.

I walked up to the podium and looked at the paper in his hand.

It was a good copy.

Whoever made it had my signature from a hundred contracts to learn from.

"What's the date on it?" I said.

"What?"

"The date. Read it out loud."

He glanced down.

"March third."

"What time?"

"Two forty in the afternoon." He lowered the paper. "What does it matter?"

I turned to face the reporters.

"On March second I collapsed in my kitchen," I said. "My appendix burst. I was in the ICU on the Upper East Side until the morning of March fifth."

A murmur went through the lobby.

"At two forty on March third I was on a ventilator."

I took out my phone and opened the hospital's patient portal.

I held it up the way he'd held up his paper.

Admission time. Discharge time. The ICU unit. My name, my real date of birth.

A reporter in the front row leaned in and took a photo of my screen.

"You can call them," I said. "I'll sign a release for anyone here."

Brent was staring at me.

Not at the phone. At me.

"You were in the hospital," he said.

"For three days."

"Why didn't anybody tell me?"

The whole room heard him say it.

I looked at him for a long moment.

"Where were you on March third, Brent?"

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

"Tell them," I said. "They're all here."

"I was at a conference."

"Where?"

"Miami."

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