Chapter 22: What Stays Here

Signe's POV

Vera did not sit down.

She stood in the aisle with the baby thread glowing on the screen behind her, and she turned to face the room.

I watched her do it.

I had seen her do it a hundred times at a hundred events, in a hundred good dresses.

She found her smile and she put it on.

"Everyone," Vera said, warm and clear. "Okay. That's... a joke. A bit. We filmed some silly things for the video, and someone has edited it to..."

"Vera," said Tyler.

He had stood up. His face was gray.

"Babe," he said, to me, across the head table. "Sig. It's a game. You know it's a game."

"I know," I said.

I picked up the microphone that had been lying beside the cake knife.

My hands were steady, and that surprised me more than anything had all week.

"Hi, everybody," I said.

My voice filled the barn and came back from the rafters.

"I'm Signe. Most of you know me. I'm the one who does the birthdays."

A few people laughed, and stopped.

"I want to tell you something before anyone else does."

I looked down at the second row.

My mother lifted her chin.

"Ten days ago, at Larch Point, I spent a night with Winston Ambrose. He's the man by the sound board."

I let that sit.

"We chose it. I want to say that very clearly."

I heard a gasp. I heard somebody say Oh my God, very softly.

"Vera filmed it. Melina was made to shoot it through a window, because Vera was holding something over her head. Then Vera used it as a threat."