And Jenna’s own voice, ice cold and unmistakable, filled the silent room.
“I’m not spending my twenties raising you.”
“During the adoption interview, you must say you want another family.”
“Don’t you dare cry.”
“That house and the insurance money should be for us, not for two kids who aren’t even mine.”
I let it play. All of it. I did not spare her a single word.
The quartet had stopped.
No one touched a glass.
A waiter stood paralyzed with a tray of champagne, unable to set it down.
Two hundred people sat frozen, and the only sound was Jenna’s recorded voice turning the air in that beautiful room to ice.
At our table, my mother’s old friends had their hands pressed to their mouths.
And my sisters, Lily and Maya, sat perfectly still, finally hearing the proof, in front of the whole world, that they had not imagined any of it.
