Chapter 18: Stock Photo

The ballroom didn't clap.

It went the opposite way, into a silence in which I could hear the air conditioning.

Kendra stood beside Landon with her hand on her stomach and a trembling, brave smile.

Somewhere at the back a camera shutter clicked.

"A baby," said a woman near me. "On the same night."

"His own mother just said she picked that girl," said her husband.

"Landon," I said.

I stood up in the front row.

"Sit down, Jessa," he said into the microphone.

"No."

"This is my announcement."

"It's your room, and you're about to say something false in it."

His hand tightened on Kendra's.

"Prove it, then," he said. "Prove she's lying."

"I'll prove it if you let me."

He looked at Kendra.

She looked at the floor.

"I have nothing to hide," Kendra said, in a small voice. "It's all on my page. Everyone's seen the scan."

"Then let's see it," I said.

Kerry came out of the dessert alcove in a navy dress with her phone in her fist.

Her red hair had come down from its knot, and her eyes were blazing.

"Landon," she said. "May I?"

He hesitated.

"The screen is behind you," Kerry said. "Your AV man is standing right there."

Landon nodded once, slowly.

The young man in the headset took her phone and plugged it into the cable.

The big screen behind the stage flickered, and then it showed an ultrasound image on a black background.

The grain was gray.

White lines ran across the top, and a clinic's stamp sat in the lower corner.

"That's the post Kendra made on Monday," Kerry said. "Two hundred thousand views."

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