Chapter 23: Two Answers

Dear Ask Us,

Whatever happens to your magazine tonight, thank you for answering my father. The cups are still on the table, but this morning I only put out one.

Cups in Everett

I had that letter folded in my cardigan, behind Marguerite's note, and I touched both of them once before she spoke again.

The ballroom was so quiet that I heard the quartet's cellist put down her bow.

"That sentence is from a reader's private letter," Marguerite said. "She has given me permission to say so tonight, and I'm grateful."

She did not look at Gordon.

"That is what the column is. A person tells the truth to a stranger, and the stranger answers without selling her anything."

She reached into her other pocket and took out two more sheets.

"Three weeks ago the publisher gave me this."

She held up the first.

"It is a draft of the first sponsored Lark. The letter is from a woman who lost her job and can't sleep."

She read the sponsor's page, flat, in her driest voice.

She read the line about reclaiming nights in ten minutes a day.

She read the line saying Lark was proud to partner with CalmLoop.

She did not add a single comment.

By the end of it the room was shifting in its chairs.

"Here is what I wrote instead," Marguerite said.

She lifted the second page.

She read it more slowly, and by the third line her voice was no longer dry.

She read the part about losing a job feeling like a verdict when it's only an event.

A man at the back table put down his fork and did not pick it up again.

She read the line telling her to call one person and say the word scared.

The ballroom did not move.

When Marguerite finished, a woman at the front table was crying openly.

"The woman who wrote that letter is a real person in Auburn," Marguerite said.

"She called her sister the next day."

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