“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “if everyone would please take their seats.”
“We will begin.”
The usher led Jeanette and Becky and Ted to the front row.
I stood in the aisle, holding a check I did not want.
Tracy bent close to my ear.
“Sit by the door,” she whispered.
“I need you to hear this.”
“I’m so sorry, Hil.”
I sat.
The quartet played.
Dr. Northcott spoke about the heart, and about the people who give so that others may live.
Jeanette rose, and in a trembling voice, with a lace handkerchief to her eye, told a hundred and fifty people that her son Neal had built this atrium with his own two hands.
Then the blue velvet curtain was drawn, and the cloth lifted off the brass.
THE NEAL OVERTON MEMORIAL ATRIUM.
A GIFT OF THE OVERTON FAMILY.
$2,400,000.
Applause rose, thin and uncertain, and d*ed.
