Chapter 18: The Number

"Put it on the television," Grandma said.

Nobody argued with her.

Colton took Savannah's phone from her shaking hand, crossed to the living room, and plugged it into the same cable I had used that night in the fall.

The big screen woke up in the doorway.

It showed a text thread with a gold-rimmed contact photo at the top, a white hydrangea in a vase.

The name above it said Mom.

Savannah stood in the dining room with her arms wrapped around herself and did not look.

"Scroll up," said the aunt who had read the release. "From July."

Colton scrolled.

Every relative at the table had turned in a chair to watch, and the room smelled of roast and cold soup.

The aunt read the one from July aloud, in a flat voice.

"'Keep her at eighty until her birthday.'" She stopped. "What birthday? Joan?"

Mom said nothing.

"There's more," Colton said.

He scrolled down to the night of the dinner and read it himself, and his voice wavered.

"'Wipe the kitchen iPad before she wakes up. I'll handle the rest.'"

I stared at the screen.

The cloud files had not been deleted by some glitch.

My mother had sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea and watched them go.

"And the next morning," Colton said. "'Delete the pearlgirl account. Say nothing to anyone.'"

"Mom told me to," Savannah said, in a small voice. "She said it was only to keep it quiet."

"There's one from yesterday," Colton said.

He read it, and then he read it again, as though the words might change.

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