Chapter 18: Run It

"My name is Lainey Stauffer," I said into the microphone.

My voice came out of the speakers, steady and loud.

"I'm not unwell. I'm not confused. Four hundred of you just heard my husband forgive me, so you should hear what for."

Brent leaned toward me, smiling.

"Lainey. Please. You're embarrassing yourself."

"Governor," I said, "you hung that medal on him for a dog rescue."

"I did," the governor said slowly.

"Please let the screen run for three minutes. If you don't like it, you can have me taken out."

The governor looked at me for a long moment.

Then she looked at the booth at the back.

"Run it," she said.

The lights dropped.

The screen above the stage went black.

A woman's voice came out of the speakers, dry and calm and a little out of breath.

Brent, honey, it's Gran.

The room went so silent that I heard a chair creak at the back.

I had told myself I would be ready.

I wasn't.

Her voice filled the ballroom, polite and apologetic, asking a man for a small kindness.

She said, don't tell her I called, she'll fuss.

A woman at the next table put both hands over her mouth.

Somebody was crying in the dark.

I held the microphone against my chest with both hands and did not move.

"That was my grandmother," I said when it ended. "Pearl Stauffer. She was eighty-one."

"She called him at 3:58 on the night of the Ridgeback Fire."

"Her tank was low and the smoke was coming up the grade. She asked him to send somebody."

Brent had stopped smiling.

"That's out of context," he said. "I never got that message."

"It was on your own phone system's backup," I said. "Your base's radio operator found it for us."

The screen lit up again.

This time it showed a waveform and a clock, 4:04, and a man's voice, warm and easy.

Air has Cedar Grade. Hold your line.

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