want to verify the hospitalization records for the D and C
procedures I had to have twice, then I’ll give you the names
and where it happened.”
“O-oh…” Amanda’s eyes widened with surprise. Surprise,
not sympathy or compassion. She didn’t blush or flush with
shame and there was no recognition of the pain she’d just
caused.
“Like I said. The lifestyle was grueling and dangerous. As
ill-suited to pregnancy as it would have been to raising
children. It was an impossibility. We wanted it, and we lost,
and after the heartache we decided that nature knew better
than we did. Pierre wasn’t someone who rested. He wasn’t
someone who could stop telling stories. He was one of the
greatest photographers of the twentieth century, and he’ll still
be considered one of the best when the twenty-first comes to a
close. He was a photographer, but he gave a voice to those
who needed it. The stories he told mattered.” She saw the
insult register with Amanda, as she meant it to. “It took death
to stop him, and I miss him tremendously.” She leaned
forward and offered her hand to Amanda, who finally looked
slightly chastened. “Thank you for the interview. It was
tremendously inspiring, and I’m sure all your readers will be
intrigued and fascinated by the way you dredged up all my old
hurts, even the ones we chose not to share with the world
because they were a piece of our own fragile privacy, that bit
of normalcy we all crave and that we carved out for ourselves.
Have a good night.”
Adalynn plastered on a pleasant, unaffected smile as she
grabbed her black designer bag and slung it over her left arm.
Everything else she’d left back at her hotel room. After a