In Silence, I Let You Go novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Hello, Husband

I walked down the center aisle of the ballroom, past nine round tables, in flat shoes.

Nobody coughed, and nobody lifted a phone.

I had been in a hundred rooms where I stood at the screen and answered questions for a man who took the thanks.

This was the first time the room belonged to me.

Tim watched me come with the folded paper still held out.

"There she is," he said, to the room. "Come on up, Han."

I climbed the three steps to the stage.

I did not take the paper.

I took the microphone off the lectern instead, and I turned it toward myself.

Up close I could smell his cologne.

It was the one I had bought him four Christmases in a row.

Sienna was on his other side, very still, with her hand gone slack in his elbow.

"Hello, husband," I said.

The speakers carried it to the back wall.

For a moment I thought no one had heard me.

Then a fork fell on a plate somewhere, and a woman at the front table said, quite loudly, "What?"

Tim laughed.

It was a bright, thin sound.

"Han," he said. "That's not funny. That's a private matter."

"You made it a public one," I said. "Thursday, on the roof, in front of everyone, at the top of your voice."

I put my hand in my bag and took out the gold-edged certificate.

I held it up where the lights caught it.

It was a little yellowed along the fold.

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