The fluorescent hum of the Manhattan Elementary auditorium vibrates in Reign Sterling’s molars. He adjusts the microphone, the heavy weight of his Patek Philippe catching the glare. Five hundred sets of eyes watch him from the folding chairs, but his own focus narrows to a single point in the front row. A girl, no older than five, stares up with a familiar, searing intensity. She has his exact slate-grey eyes and the stubborn set of a jaw he sees in the mirror every morning.
It isn't possible. He’d left Iris five years ago with a check she never cashed and a silence that felt like a burial. Yet here is this miniature ghost, swinging her scuffed Mary Janes just inches from the stage. The girl tilts her head, and the gesture is so painfully like her mother’s that Reign’s rehearsed speech about corporate philanthropy dies in his throat. He misses his cue, his hand tightening on the edge of the mahogany podium until the wood groans.
He scans the crowd, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The air in the room suddenly feels too thin, smelling of floor wax and old paper. Then, a movement near the exit catchers his periphery.
A woman in a beige trench coat steps into the back aisle, her face tilting up into the light.
