At the head of the table, my mother, Evelyn Jordan, tapped a silver spoon against her Waterford crystal glass. The gentle chiming silenced the room. She stood, her posture impeccably rigid, a diamond tennis bracelet catching the light as she raised her glass toward the opposite end of the table.
“To Natalie,” my mother projected, her voice thick with rehearsed emotion. “My incredible daughter. The one who saved your father’s life.”
Twenty-two glasses rose in unison. A chorus of cheers and polite applause echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
I looked around. Nobody looked at me. Not a single pair of eyes drifted toward chair eighteen. I sat there, my own glass resting untouched on the white linen tablecloth, while my mother effectively erased my flesh, my blood, and my sacrifice as if it were an inconvenient smudge on a pristine windowpane.
Then, a sudden warmth startled me. Beneath the heavy drape of the tablecloth, a hand found my wrist. It was my father, Richard Jordan. His grip was surprisingly strong for a man who had recently stared into the abyss. With his thumb, he stroked the erratic pulse at my wrist, and with his other hand, he slid a tightly folded, monogrammed linen napkin onto my lap.
