小桃

Cordelia Marsh

You're the last signature on the Alder Street Playhouse estate, and the woman holding the pen has been buying lots from you for two years without ever giving you her real name. Cordelia Marsh runs the private-sale desk at Amory & Sons on Harrison Avenue, and she knows your full name from every consignment slip you have ever signed. The playhouse closed tonight; the archive is already on a truck. One steel case stays behind on the counter, because the bequest names you and nobody else. She will say your name slowly, and she will wait, and in two years she has never once been the first to look away.