She swallowed.
“They’ve told Leona’s people that tonight she’s going to announce from the stage that ‘the newest Sheehan’ is going to save a child’s life.”
My mother let out a long breath.
“In front of two hundred sixty people,” she said. “So you can’t say no.”
I looked at the drawing of the horse still in my hand.
“Then let’s let two hundred sixty people watch,” I said.
Rochelle smiled for the first time in days.
“I’m wearing my good coat,” she said.
Chapter 4: What a Disappointment
The ballroom of the Grand Meridian smelled of white roses and champagne.
Twenty-six round tables glittered under chandeliers, and a banner as long as a bus hung over the stage.
THE SHEEHAN NIGHT OF HOPE. FOR EVERY CHILD, A CHANCE.
I stood in the doorway in a navy dress that still didn’t zip properly in the back, holding my father’s arm.
My body ached in places I didn’t have names for.
My mother was beside me in her good wool coat.
Alicia was on my other side, in the one dress she owned, a green one, with her hands knotted together.
“Liza Sheehan,” I told the woman at the door. “Family.”
The volunteer looked at her list.
Her smile slipped.
“Mrs. Sheehan, I’m so sorry. There’s a note. Mrs. Leona Sheehan said she wasn’t expecting you.”
Two men in dark suits appeared at her elbows.
My father stepped forward, all six feet of him, and put himself in the doorway as calmly as he had once stood at a thousand mailboxes.
“Evening, gentlemen,” Eugene said. “We’re going in.”
They looked at each other.
Then they stepped aside.
Two hundred sixty people in black tie and sequins turned their heads, and the room hummed down to a murmur.
At the long head table sat Ian, in a tuxedo, with a gold Rolex flashing at his wrist.
He saw me.
He half rose, grey-faced, and sat back down as if his strings had been cut.
On the stage, under a cascade of white roses, Leona stood at the podium.
She wore a sapphire gown, a Cartier necklace as thick as a collar, and a smile that could have sold ice in January.
The Birkin sat on a stand beside her, like a pet.
“…and so, my friends,” she was saying, “it’s with a full heart that I share some news tonight.”
Her voice rolled warmly across the room.
“For nine years, our family has quietly cared for a little girl in need. Tonight, I’m told, a new member of our family, my granddaughter, only four days old, has been found a perfect match to save her life.”
Applause rose, tender and warm.
“Antonia Sheehan will give a child the gift of life,” Leona beamed, spreading her arms toward the head table.
The spotlight found the empty chair beside Ian.
Then somebody at table four pointed, and it swung to the back of the ballroom.
To me.
“Liza, darling!” Leona called.
Her voice only wobbled by a hair.
“Come up, sweetheart. Come take your applause.”
I let go of my father’s arm.
It was forty-one steps down the center aisle.
I counted every one.
My heels clicked on the parquet.
I climbed the four steps to the stage, took the microphone from its stand, and held it, and looked at two hundred sixty faces that had come to be good for one evening.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll be brief. I have a four-day-old at home.”
Leona’s smile stayed pasted in place.
“First, I want to say yes.”
The room let out its breath.
“On Monday morning at 11:20, I signed a consent donating my daughter’s cord bl*od to a nine-year-old girl named Addie Cormier. It was witnessed by two nurses. It was signed in my own handwriting, with a clear mind, after I’d met her.”
Applause started.
