Chapter 17: The Donor

Jo's POV

By Friday noon three donors had called my assistant, and a fourth had called Arthur at home.

My assistant laid a printout on the desk face down.

"You should see it before you hear about it," she said.

I turned it over.

It was the window above the laundromat, with me in it.

I looked at my own bare shoulder for a long time.

"The subject line is The chair and her finalist," she said. "It went to fourteen people."

Arthur came in leaning on his cane, with his coat still on.

"I have written you a resignation letter," he said. "It's very good. I'd like you to burn it."

"Why would I resign?"

"I'm a lawyer. I'm obliged to say that a lot of boards would ask."

"Is it true?"

"It's true that you were in a window," he said. "It isn't true that you chose him."

"I would have," I said. "That's the problem."

The door opened without a knock.

A tiny woman in a mink coat and a grey wool hat came in on a chauffeur's arm.

She waved him out.

My assistant went white.

"That's the atrium," she whispered.

The widow who gave eleven million dollars looked me over from my crutches to my face.

"You have Margaret's chin," she said. "Sit down, child, you look like a heron."

I sat.

She took the other chair, set her purse on her knees, and opened it.

"Yesterday afternoon a young man came to my house," she said.

"He hadn't called. He had a state police report in his hand and no coat on.

"I made him eat soup.

"He told me about a car, a dead boy, and a friend who lied to him for eight years.

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