The Encore of Us novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Forty Minutes

The hall went so quiet I could hear the stage lights burn.

"My husband's name was Halvard Brandvold," Ingrid said into the dark, from three steps behind me. "He is not on trial."

"No," I said. "You are."

A gasp went up from the balcony.

I did not look at her.

I looked at nine hundred faces and found the one at the back.

It was a man in a gray cap, standing beside the county attorney's deputy.

"Seven years ago in October, Halvard Brandvold lay at the bottom of the iron stairs behind this stage," I said.

"His son had pushed him off my wrist."

"I knelt beside him. He was awake and he was talking."

"Mrs. Brandvold told me she would call for help, and I believed her."

"She sat down on the third step."

"The records will say how long. I am here to say what it cost."

"Every one of you has been told those minutes were an accident."

"They were a choice, and I am asking you to stop paying for it."

Somebody in the stalls began to cry.

"She says she called the moment she found him," I said.

"A man who cleaned this building for thirty-one years watched her do it, and he is here to say so."

"He stands at the back of this hall, and he is not afraid anymore."

Every head turned.

The janitor took off his cap.

"It's true," he said, in a voice that carried to the rafters. "Every word. I took her money to keep still, and I'm sorry."

He held up one green slip.

"Eighty-four checks. I kept every stub."

Ingrid made a sound that wasn't a word.

"That's a lie," she said. "That man is a drunk and a thief."

"Mother," Anders said, very quietly.

He had stepped up beside me, and he didn't touch the microphone.

"I'm the one who pushed him. I've paid for that for seven years. I'll pay for it again if the court says."

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