I watched the sentence do its small work on him.

He heard the words, I think, without hearing them, the way you hear an announcement in an airport that is not yet about your flight.

He could not conceive of a version of this evening in which the important name at the end was not his own, and so my warning slid off him entirely, and he turned back toward the stage still arranging his modest, triumphant face, and I let him, because some lessons can only be learned at full speed.”

The lights began to dim.