My Wife's Last Call I Never Answered novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: Say It Without an Audience
The hospital foundation held its trauma-unit benefit on Saturday night at the Long Center, with three hundred donors in black tie and a cellist on the program.
Philippa had found a new sponsor in six days.
It was the foundation itself, and the program said she was playing in honor of the doctors and nurses of the emergency department.
I read that line standing at the back of the hall.
My mother stood beside me in her good grey coat with her handbag held in front of her in both hands.
"You don't have to do this," she said.
"Yes, I do."
"Then I'm coming down with you."
The lights went down, and Philippa walked out in her black gown with her wrist freshly wrapped in a flesh-colored band.
The applause was long.
She sat, set her bow to the string, and played the first movement of the Elgar, and she played it beautifully.
That was the worst part.
I looked for Clara and found her in the twelfth row, in a navy dress I had never seen, with her father in a borrowed jacket on one side and the department head on the other.
She was not looking at the stage.
She was looking at her hands.
At the intermission the donors rose and drifted toward the bar, and I walked down the center aisle with my mother behind me.
A stagehand tried to stop me at the steps.
"Sir, the stage is closed."
"I'll be two minutes," I said, and went up.
I took the microphone from its stand.
The lobby doors had not yet closed, and the people in the aisles slowed and turned.
"Good evening," I said. "My name is Hayes Garrison. For three years my firm funded Ms. Crane's tour, and as of last week it doesn't."
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