“For me?” she said.

“Yes,” Samantha said clearly, so the room could hear.

“For you.

Go ahead and open it.”

There was a stillness over the whole reception now, every eye on the head table, on the elegant woman in the glittering gown and the worn white box in front of her.

I sat very still in my seat, my heart going hard against my ribs, because I knew what was in that box, every single item of it, and I knew that in a moment fifteen years of the truth I had carried alone was going to be lifted out, piece by piece, in front of a hundred and fifty people, and I did not know whether I was more afraid or more relieved.

It is a strange thing, to have carried a secret weight for fifteen years and to watch it about to be set down in public, in a single moment, in front of a crowd.