Ed McMahon looked over from his chair.
The band stopped.
Behind the cameras, confusion spread among the production crew.
Through Carson’s earpiece, the director’s voice came urgently.
“Johnny, you’re live. Talk to us.”
But Carson did not respond.
He was no longer focused on the cameras.
He was looking at a little girl standing near the front of the stage.
She was only seven years old.
She wore a blue dress that seemed slightly too large for her small frame. Around her wrist was an old man’s watch that hung loosely because it had never been made for a child. In her hands, she held a folded piece of paper with such care that it appeared almost priceless.
Moments earlier, she had whispered something to Johnny Carson.
Whatever those words were, they had reached a place inside him that even decades of television experience could not protect.
