Fallon stared at the open folder while the voice on her phone asked whether she was still there.
She did not answer.
I could hear the faint electronic hiss of the call and the hard ticking of Warren’s brass desk clock.
Fallon’s eyes moved from my face to the phone in my hand, then to the document waiting on my desk.
The signature line was blank, but my name had already been typed beneath it.
“Finish your call,” I said.
Her mouth opened, then closed.
The person on the other end repeated the question.
Fallon lifted the phone slowly.
“I’ll have to call you back.”
She disconnected and placed the phone beside my stationery as if careful movements could make the scene look innocent.
“What are you doing here, Lenora?”
It was such an astonishing question that, for a moment, I almost laughed.
“This is my house.”
“I mean, I thought you were meeting Darlene.”
“So you knew where I was supposed to be.”
Fallon glanced toward the door.
“Ellis said you might go out.”
“Ellis told you to come into my office?”
“No.
Of course not.”
I looked at the birthday card beside her hand.
She had circled my signature and made several attempts to copy it on a yellow pad.
The first was shaky.
The fourth looked close enough to fool someone who had never received a letter from me.
Fallon reached for the papers.
I placed my palm over them.
“Do not touch anything else.”
Her pleasant public expression disappeared.
The softness left her eyes first, then her mouth.
“You’re making this into something it isn’t.”
“You told someone you were my assistant.”
“It was quicker than explaining the family relationship.”
“You told them I approved the recordings.”
“You never objected before.”
“I learned about them this morning.”
A small muscle tightened in her jaw.
The folder Darlene had prepared contained handwritten timestamps from all three episodes.
She had marked every place my voice appeared and written what she remembered about the original family conversations.
Darlene had attended two of them.
She knew one supposedly cruel remark had been made while I was teasing Ellis about burning dinner rolls.
I turned to the first page.
“At fourteen minutes and twelve seconds, you say I mocked your education.
Then you play me saying, ‘That little certificate cost enough.’”
Fallon folded her arms.
“I remember how you said it.”
“I was talking about the warranty certificate for Warren’s camera.”
“That doesn’t change the tone.”
“It changes the subject.”
She looked away.
I continued.
“At twenty-seven minutes, you claim I ordered Ellis not to support your career.
Then you play me saying, ‘You don’t have to pay for every idea she has.’”
“That happened.”
“You were describing a woman from your yoga class who wanted Ellis to invest in an imported herbal drink.
You told us she had already lost money from six people.”
