Eliza hadn’t slept well and it showed when she arrived at work. Paige immediately noticed the puffiness under her boss’s eyes.
“Don’t say a word,” Eliza warned. “I tossed and turned all night Thank God I have Doris to work her magic.”
“How did it go with the house?” Paige asked hopefully. She had been the one who had made the phone calls arranging for the driver to pick up Janie and her grandmother for the ride out to New Jersey.
“Loved it. Bought it.”
“Wow! That was quick. Congratulations.”
For someone who had just found her perfect home, Eliza didn’t seem too happy. But Paige didn’t think it was her place to pursue it further. Twenty-two years old, she still couldn’t believe she was working at KEY News for Eliza Blake. She held her boss in awe, though she tried hard not to show it.
“Any important messages?” Eliza asked briskly.
“Range would like to see you when it’s convenient, and Abigail Snow wants to know when you’ll be available to tape the new promos.”
“Mail?”
The letter from Meat passed unsettlingly through Paige’s mind but she did not mention it.
“FRAXA, the Fragile X Research Foundation, would like you to be their keynote speaker at a fundraising dinner at Tavern on the Green next May.”
“Fine. Check my calendar. If I’m open, accept for me. If I have something else booked, move it around.”
Eliza had never even heard of Fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation, until she had gotten to know Bill Kendall, her predecessor, the legendary KEY News anchorman who had committed suicide last spring. Bill’s son, William, had Fragile X. Bill had always been so kind to Eliza, especially when she was going through the worst of it after John had died and Janie was born. Louise Kendall, William’s mother, had found the house she was about to buy. And William was the sweetest young man. There was no way she was going to refuse FRAXA.
Eliza turned to go into her office but stopped as Paige remembered something else.
“There was another letter from Sarah Morton.”
“Oh? Let me see it.” There was a tone of concern and sadness in Eliza’s voice. She took the envelope from Paige’s outstretched hand and began to read it as she walked to her desk.
Sarah was a twelve-year-old from Sarasota, Florida, and had been writing to Eliza for months. Eliza was her idol; the young girl had first written her when Eliza was still anchoring the morning show. The letter probably never would have reached Eliza’s desk, as most fan letters failed to do. But Sarah’s case was special.
After just a dozen years on this earth, Sarah Morton was undergoing cancer treatments. An A student who loved to play soccer and softball, Sarah explained that she watched KEY to America each morning and dreamed of becoming a television newswoman one day. Of all the women on TV, Sarah declared, Eliza was her favorite.
Eliza had answered Sarah’s letter personally, thanking her, encouraging her to keep up with the news and wishing her good luck. The following week Sarah sent another letter, thrilled that Eliza had responded to her letter and asking for an autographed picture.
And so it started. Eliza made it a point to take a few minutes each week to answer Sarah’s sweet, handwritten letters. The girl was so grateful for her revered pen pal, Eliza hadn’t had the heart to stop their correspondence. As Sarah described the torturous route of chemotherapy she was undergoing, and talked about losing her hair and how embarrassed she was about it, Eliza found herself weeping for the child and, of course, she knew she was crying for John as well. Many nights she thought of Sarah as she tucked her own Janie into bed and said a silent prayer of thanksgiving that her own little girl was healthy.
Now, as Eliza scanned the latest note, Sarah said she was coming to New York next week to see the doctors at Sloan-Kettering. Eliza instinctively felt fear as she saw the leading cancer hospital’s name on the white sheet before her. Sloan was where John had died.
Things must really be bad.
There was a second, typed letter in the envelope, on the letterhead of Samuel Morton, Attorney-at-Law.
Dear Ms. Blake,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the correspondence you have so generously and faithfully kept up with Sarah. It has meant the world to her.
On her worst days, she rereads your letters to take her mind off the pain she is in. For all the hellish treatments she has been through, we’ve seen no real improvement. In fact, she is getting worse. The trip to New York is really a last-ditch attempt to see if there is anything else that can be done.
Sarah doesn’t know that I am writing you, and I know that it is terribly presumptuous of me to ask what I am about to request. Is there any chance that we could set up some time for Sarah to meet you personally while we are in New York? It would mean the world to her, and to me, to see my daughter happy.
Before she dies, was the great unspoken.