Part 6
“No,” Evelyn said. “Not then.”
“But before?”
“Yes.”
“About me?”
Evelyn took a breath.
Laura had asked her not to turn Sophie into another project. Those were the words. Another project. She had been feverish, exhausted, furious at her own body, and still capable of finding the wound precisely.
Evelyn had answered badly. She had said discipline was not cruelty. Laura had laughed once and said, You always know which defense to bring before anyone makes the accusation.
They had repaired enough before the end. Not everything. Death did not create honesty. It only removed the chance to improve it.
“Partly,” Evelyn said.
Sophie waited.
“Your mother thought I expected too much from people I loved.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised both of them.
Sophie pressed middle C again. “Do you expect too much from me?”
“Sometimes.”
“Like what?”
“I expect you to tell me when you are frightened.”
“I do.”
“No. You become polite.”
Sophie’s finger remained on the key without pressing it.
Evelyn continued, “I expect you not to protect me from your sadness. That is too much to ask of a child. But I ask it anyway, silently, and then become disappointed when you cannot do it.”
Sophie looked down. “I didn’t want to cry in front of that man.”
“Neither did I.”
“Were you going to?”
“No.”
“You looked like you might.”
Evelyn considered lying. It would have been easy and perhaps kind.
“I might have later.”
Sophie leaned against her arm.
The stage door opened behind them.
Julian entered alone.
He had removed his tuxedo jacket. His white shirt pulled slightly at the shoulders, and his bow tie had been untied but not removed. Without the formal lines of his uniform, he looked younger and more tired.
Alexander stepped forward.
Julian stopped near the wings. “I was told to leave the property.”
“I told you to remain available,” Alexander said.
“Marian told security to escort me out.”
“Did they?”
“No. Rosa from coat check said Mrs. Moore was onstage.”
He looked at Evelyn. “I wanted to apologize without an audience.”
Sophie moved closer to her grandmother.
Evelyn closed the keyboard cover.
Julian stayed where he was. “I shouldn’t have come in.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “But you have.”
He nodded.
Alexander’s voice was cold. “Say what you came to say.”
Julian glanced toward him. “Could you give us a minute?”
“No.”
Evelyn looked at Alexander. “Please.”
His disappointment was immediate, but he stepped back into the corridor. He left the door open.
Julian walked no closer than the first row of seats.
“I knew your name,” he said.
Evelyn waited.
“When the receptionist searched it, a file appeared with a restricted marker. It said no direct contact, no event solicitation, all communication through the chair’s office.”
Alexander turned in the doorway.
Evelyn looked at him. “Did you place that marker?”
“No.”
Julian continued quickly. “The file had no photo. No current giving history. No active invitation attached. The envelope looked like archived stationery, and there have been incidents with people taking materials from displays to access donor events.”
“People who looked like me?”
His face tightened. “No.”
“People wearing wool coats instead of silk?”
“I can’t answer that in a way that makes what I did better.”
“That may be because there is no such answer.”
He nodded.
Sophie watched him with a stillness that made him speak more carefully.
Julian said, “I thought you were using the name.”
“Why?”
“Because I had been told Mrs. Moore declined all museum contact and would never attend another event.”
This time, no one spoke.
Alexander entered the hall. “Who told you that?”
“Marian.”
The answer came reluctantly but clearly.
Evelyn’s hand closed around the envelope.
Alexander looked toward the corridor, as though Marian might appear simply because her name had been spoken.
“Exactly what did she say?” he asked.
Julian rubbed one hand over the other. “During the guest-list review. I asked why a permanent hall benefactor was missing. She said Mrs. Moore wanted no contact, that the relationship was sensitive, and that any person claiming to represent her should be referred to security and the chair’s office.”
“She said security?”
“Yes.”
Alexander’s face went pale beneath the stage lights.
Evelyn looked down at the envelope on the bench.
Someone wanted her there.
Someone else had worked to ensure she would not come.
“Where is Marian?” she asked.
“In the trustees’ dining room,” Julian said. “She’s speaking with the sponsors.”
“Bring her here,” Alexander said.
Julian did not move.
“You dismissed me,” he said.
“Then consider yourself temporarily reinstated for one task.”
“No,” Evelyn said.
Alexander looked at her.
“Do not send him.”
“Why?”
“Because Marian will assume he is acting to save himself. She may be right.”
Julian’s jaw tightened, but he did not object.
Evelyn stood. She put on her coat, smoothed the front, and returned the envelope to her hand.
“I will go.”
Sophie slid off the bench. “Me too.”
“No.”
The child’s face closed.
Evelyn immediately regretted the sharpness of her answer. She crouched carefully, knees protesting beneath her skirt.
“I need to have an unpleasant conversation,” she said. “You have had enough unpleasantness for one evening.”
“I don’t want to stay with him.” Sophie glanced at Julian.
“You won’t.”
Alexander stepped closer. “You can stay with me.”
Sophie looked at him, then at her grandmother. “Will you come back?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know how long.”
“No.”
“You said people shouldn’t promise what they don’t know.”
Evelyn almost smiled. “I promised to return, not when.”
Sophie considered the distinction and accepted it with visible reluctance.
Evelyn straightened and handed Alexander her coat sleeve for balance, but she kept the envelope.
Julian moved aside as she passed.
“I am sorry,” he said again.
She stopped.
This apology sounded different. Less complete, perhaps more honest.
“I believe you are sorry,” she said. “I do not yet know what you are sorry about.”
May you like
She left him with that.
The trustees’ dining room had been arranged to look informal at enormous expense. Low floral displays ran down three long tables. Candles burned inside smoked-glass cylinders. Donors spoke beneath a ceiling painted with clouds no one looked at.
