The auditorium had shown me that it could amplify it.

But it could not manufacture the sort of achievement I had seen onstage, and it could not make my neglected children want to know me.

PART 9: The Letter Marianne Kept

The following evening Marianne agreed to meet me in a public café near the university.

She arrived alone carrying a narrow envelope, not the thick dossier I’d seen with Chloe.

“Before we discuss anything else,” she said, “you need to understand why I didn’t continue chasing you.”