CHAPTER THREE — THE VOICE THAT WASN’T THERE
Curtis stepped between Nora and the case.
“She has a shift to finish,” he said.
Nora faced him.
“You removed my weekend shifts ten minutes ago.”
“That doesn’t mean you can abandon tonight’s closing work.”
Claire asked him to give Nora a moment alone.
He began to object until one of the security officers moved toward the door and politely held it open.
Curtis retreated to the kitchen, muttering about lawyers.
Claire took off her gloves.
“There is a memorial concert scheduled tomorrow at the Wren.”
“It’s been advertised all over the city,” Nora said.
She remembered a poster on the train platform showing Marion Whitmore beneath the words ONE LAST SONG.
The poster had struck her as strange, though she had not understood why.
“The production team claims it can reconstruct Mother’s voice using recordings from her performances,” Claire said.
“They plan to project her image onstage.”
Nora rubbed the chipped corner of the music box.
“Does your father want that?”
“He approved an early demonstration.”
“And now?”
“Now he says they changed what he agreed to.”
Claire opened her phone to show Nora a video.
On its screen, a woman in a silver dress stood before a black curtain.
The face resembled the photograph in the case, although its smile never quite reached the eyes.
A clear singing voice filled the diner.
The singer delivered a line about coming home to someone she had never stopped loving.
Nora listened to the last note.
“Is that a real song she sang?”
“No,” Claire said.
“It was written last month.”
The video ended with the words WHITMORE ETERNAL EXPERIENCES.
Nora read them twice.
“That’s a product advertisement.”
Claire put the phone away.
“The company intends to sell performances based on licensed archives to other families and estates.”
“They want your mother to advertise it.”
“That is one way to describe it.”
Nora remembered a classmate who had lost his mother and kept an answering machine because her voice was still on it.
He had never let anyone record over the message.
She understood why an imitation might be both precious and unbearable.
“Why are you asking me?” she said.
“You don’t know me.”
Claire seemed relieved by the direct question.
“Father wanted somebody who hadn’t been invited to our meetings.”
“There must be a hundred people he trusts.”
“They all have something to gain.”
“And I don’t?”
Nora pointed toward the case.
“You came in a Bentley with a locked box and told a waitress her opinion matters.”
Claire looked down.
“You’re right to question it.”
Outside, the engine of the Bentley continued to idle.
Nora thought of Eli waiting for her to bring milk.
She could not accept a ride into a rich family’s argument without knowing how she would get home.
She told Claire about her son and the bus fare she no longer had.
Claire offered a ride and childcare payment, but Nora shook her head.
“I won’t take money before I know what I’m being asked to do.”
“Then I can drive you home first.”
“And the theater?”
“You can decide after you’ve seen it.”
Nora called Mrs. Alvarez from the diner telephone.
Her neighbor answered on the fourth ring.
Eli was sleeping, and she could keep him a little longer.
Nora promised to explain in the morning.
She folded her apron and placed it in her locker.
Curtis emerged carrying a trash bag.
“If you leave before the dishes are done, don’t come back.”
Nora looked around the diner she had cleaned for three years.
She thought of every time Curtis had threatened workers over a late bus or a sick child.
“The dishes are in the machine,” she said.
“And the people you threatened are the reason this place opens tomorrow.”
Curtis stared at her without answering.
Nora picked up the leather case and walked into the snow.
