Chapter 18: The Slideshow

I wore the blue dress to Lila's party, because Brett had asked me to.

I got there at noon with the flash drive in my bag and my heart going hard.

The lawn on Lake of the Isles had been turned into a garden overnight.

White tents, long tables, a jazz trio tuning near the water, and peonies in every vase.

Lila had flown in the peonies from California.

Tony met me at the back of the main tent, where a screen stood between two speakers.

He wore a charcoal suit, and he looked like a man who had not slept in a week.

"The laptop's here," he said. "The clicker's in the drawer. I've told the sound man you're doing the slideshow at nine."

"And the drive?"

I held it up.

It carried eleven years of Lila's life, and the six folders I'd added at the end.

I plugged it in and ran the first minute while the sound man watched.

Lila at eighteen, laughing, in a borrowed sweater.

Lila and me on a dorm roof.

Lila crying at my wedding, holding my veil off the ground.

The sound man sniffled and said it was beautiful.

I said thank you.

By six o'clock a hundred and twenty people stood on the grass with drinks in their hands.

I looked at the faces I knew.

Lila's parents, with their arms around each other.

Tony's father, silver-haired and stern, beside two men from the lumber board.

Brett's boss and his wife.

Half the nurses from my floor.

And in the middle of it, in a white dress that cut close at the waist, Lila.