Chapter 7: Played in Public

Three hundred heads turned toward the aisle.

Cameras swung around, and a reporter in the second row stood up on her chair.

Dalton walked toward the stage with his arms open, and tears ran down his face on cue.

"Three years ago I was declared dead," he said. "I woke up in a hospital with no name and no memory of who I was."

The memory had come back, apparently, in time for the press.

"I'm Dalton Fenn," he said. "And that woman on the stage is my wife."

The room gasped.

Behind me, I heard the lawyer say, "Miss Thornbury?"

"Let him finish," I said.

My father's hand tightened on his cane.

Dalton reached the foot of the stage and went down on one knee.

"Hal," he said. "I came back as soon as I could. I'll never leave you again."

My mother was crying into a tissue in the front row.

Dalton's mother had her hand over her heart.

Cora, beside them, kept her face turned down, and her shoulders shook.

A man in the press row had a camera trained on her belly.

"My family has suffered so much," Dalton said. "All I want is to be home, with my wife, with my child's mother and with the people who love us."

"Your child's mother," a reporter called.

"Cora Thornbury, my wife's sister," Dalton said. "She survived too."

Cora lifted her wet face.

The whole room made a soft sound, and I realized that every one of them thought this was beautiful.

"Thank you," I said into the microphone.

It carried to the back of the hall.

"Thank you for coming back from the dead, Dalton. Thank you for being honest with everyone."

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