Chapter 5: Pledges

The children's ward held its thank-you lunch on a Thursday, in the atrium under a banner that read CORSETTI PEDIATRIC WING.

I had walked under that banner as a child and never once thought about the name on it.

Rocco came with me. He wore a gray suit and stood one step behind my left shoulder.

"You don't have to talk," he said.

"I know."

"You can stay in the car."

"I'd like to see their faces," I said, and he almost smiled.

The ward director met us at the door.

She was a tired woman in a cardigan, and she shook my hand with both of hers.

"Ms. Corsetti. Your gift is the largest single pledge we've ever received."

"It isn't mine," I said. "It's his."

"It was your week," Rocco said.

Inside, forty people were eating chicken salad at round tables.

I saw Margot at the head table, in a cream dress, holding a clipboard.

Beside her was a woman in pearls I didn't know. At the next table sat three of Thurston's partners with their wives.

Thurston wasn't there.

"I'll find the ones from table nine," the ward director said, lowering her voice. "Their pledges are still open. All four of them."

"How much?"

"Two thousand five hundred altogether."

"They bid it out loud in a ballroom," I said.

"People get a little forgetful once the champagne wears off."

I took the microphone from the stand by the podium, the way I had a week earlier.

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