I was twenty-eight weeks with triplets and bleeding on a hotel sofa when my husband adjusted his tie and went downstairs. Four days later a man I had never met put a small black recorder on my hospital bed.

“Give me that. Nobody’s here for your grandfather’s charity, Tali. Sit down and smile — you’re on the seating plan for a reason.”

There was a laugh. A real one, from about six of them, because he delivered it beautifully. That man could always deliver a line.

Verena Skeel topped somebody’s glass up.

The table went back to its own conversation in about four seconds.

Twenty-five people. Two of them foundation donors. A woman who had known my grandfather.

Nobody said one word.

And I sat down and I smiled, and I did the rest of that evening, and I never picked that list back up.