Chapter 19: The Microphone

Greer walked up the three steps to the podium with her hands shaking.

Constance put Otto on her own hip and stepped back with her smile on.

The room waited, glasses lifted.

"Thank you all for coming," Greer said, in her soft voice. "I was supposed to read something."

She unfolded a card, looked at it, and set it down.

"I'm not going to."

Constance's smile did not move.

"Greer, dear."

"My name is Greer Whitby. I've been Greer Ardmore for thirteen months."

She gripped the podium with both hands.

"That's the first true thing I've said in front of this many people."

A murmur went through the tables.

At the back, Eli's phone lit and went dark. I saw the girl at the technical desk lean toward her screen.

"I carried a baby for nine months," Greer said. "I carried him in Singapore, and I gave birth to him alone."

"That's enough," Constance said, and walked toward the podium.

"He isn't mine."

The words came out of the speakers a half second late.

"Otto isn't mine. He belongs to Eliza Farraday, who's standing by the stairs, and to Chase."

Greer lifted her chin.

"Eliza's cancer took her ability to carry. They froze six embryos before her chemo. Chase told her they were lost."

Someone dropped a fork.

"They weren't lost."

Greer's voice cracked and kept going.

"I was told she knew. I was told she'd asked me. She didn't."

Constance reached the podium and put a hand on the microphone.

"Turn that off," she said to the room.

Nobody moved.