Chapter 11: The Shower

I typed "Who is this?" with my right thumb and sent it.

The message came back undelivered.

Jesse looked at the picture over my shoulder for a long time.

"That's a kitchen freezer," he said. "She put them on ice."

"Them?"

He held up his own white fingers.

At noon on Wednesday the color came back into Jesse's hand all at once.

That night at 12:04 his brother squeezed his hand, once, like always.

Mine stayed ice cold.

I sat at his kitchen table until three in the morning with my hand on a heating pad.

I talked to my sister the whole time, and she didn't answer once.

On Thursday morning Price called me.

"I got your number off the wedding contract," he said. "I hope that's all right."

"It's all right."

"I was at the hearing." His voice was low, like he was standing somewhere he shouldn't be. "I saw the judge's phone."

"Then you know I'm not crazy."

"I don't know what I know." He breathed out. "There's something in the freezer in the butler's pantry. A wooden thing in a Ziploc bag."

My heart started pounding.

"My mother told the housekeeper never to touch it," he said. "She keeps it in there like it's the good butter."

"Price, that's my sister."

He didn't hang up.

"The bridal shower's at the house today," he said. "Four to seven. You're still on the contract to shoot it."

"She hasn't fired me?"

"She told me she wants you where she can see you."

He paused. "The key to the tower cabinet is on her key ring. She leaves her purse in the front hall."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I keep writing a C on things," he said.

"On napkins and deposit slips. I wrote one on my hand yesterday in pen."

The shower filled the downstairs with forty women in sundresses and a cake shaped like a small wedding cake.

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