Abandoned on a Snow Mountain, I Became a Tycoon’s Obsession - Full Episode #ADB - Vidéo Dailymotion

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Transcript

00:08:37Damien...

00:08:39I opened my eyes. What does Reagan have that we don't?

00:08:45Her name on a wire. Two of them, so far.

00:08:54She's not the graduate studies she's been pretending to be.

00:08:56Damien laid it out on the rolling tray table at my elbow.

00:08:59Two wire transferals, both routed through the same Delaware shell.

00:09:01Both signed at the receiving end by R. Snow.

00:09:03The amounts were not enormous. 84,000, 112,000.

00:09:06Both wired in the last 14 months. Both dated to weeks Reagan had been listed on Preston's expedition, minused as

00:09:11a junior researcher.

00:09:1284,000 for what? Equipment line item. A piece of sonar gear that was never delivered.

00:09:17She's 26. She's 26 on paper.

00:09:21Her undergrad was an internship at a foundation in Connecticut, whose director sat on three of Preston's grant review panels.

00:09:28She wasn't his accident. She was his hire.

00:09:33She was his hire.

00:09:36How long have you known?

00:09:39Since the second wire cleared.

00:09:42Four months.

00:09:46I was building. I needed the chain to be unbreakable.

00:09:50If you'd come to me sooner, I'd have moved sooner.

00:09:56I didn't know to come to you.

00:09:59I know.

00:10:00A nurse pushed open the door, looked at my face, looked at the tray of documents, looked at Damien and

00:10:03quietly backed out.

00:10:04Damien picked up a fresh sheet from the bottom of the stack.

00:10:06He turned it so I could see. It was a screen grab of a private social media account, locked.

00:10:10Win of two followers, the vestring handle of a core count.

00:10:12The hand was not mine.

00:10:13The post was dated two years before Reagan had supposedly emailed Preston out of the blue.

00:10:17The pin post was a photograph of Preston and Crasson's true seat or hand been invincible.

00:10:21The wound throbbed once.

00:10:23I let it.

00:10:24Damien.

00:10:25Hmm?

00:10:26She's been with him for...

00:10:27At minimum, three years.

00:10:32Three years.

00:10:33Three years was an entire fellowship cycle.

00:10:36Three years was a lab move.

00:10:37Three years was every conference where Preston had told me he was too overwhelmed to bring me as a guest.

00:10:42Three years was the time during which I had been planning a wedding in my head while writing his grants

00:10:47in my hand.

00:10:47I picked the photograph back up.

00:10:49The hand on Preston's cheek had a small mark at the wrist.

00:10:52The same shape as a beauty mark Reagan had.

00:10:55Very pale, almost invisible against her skin.

00:10:58I had once told her that mark was lovely.

00:11:00She had told me she hated it.

00:11:06How long until the audit drops?

00:11:08Friday.

00:11:09Three days.

00:11:11How long until the criminal complaint files?

00:11:14Riley Pope has already been brought in for questioning by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

00:11:18Preston?

00:11:18He'll be charged Tuesday.

00:11:19Federal jurisdiction.

00:11:21The beacon falls under interstate field safety regulations.

00:11:23Reagan?

00:11:23Reagan is more delicate.

00:11:25The wires are evidence of fraud.

00:11:26The relationship is evidence of motive.

00:11:28The recording is evidence of intent.

00:11:29But she'll lawyer up fast.

00:11:31I expect her to flip on Preston by the end of next week.

00:11:33And the academic side?

00:11:34Marsh's ethics committee convenes Wednesday at his university.

00:11:37We are providing the audit, the recording, and the wires.

00:11:40Outcome is predictable.

00:11:41He'll be stripped of his appointment, his doctoral supervision rights, his five most recent publications, and the federal grant he

00:11:46was about to sign.

00:11:49Reeves.

00:11:50Damien did not blink.

00:11:51Reeves has known about the embezzlement for at least two years.

00:11:54I closed my eyes.

00:11:55He nominated you for the independent fellowship in part to diffuse internal questions about who your name kept appearing on

00:12:00the Foundation paperwork and never on the bylines.

00:12:03That's why he called me.

00:12:04That's why he called me.

00:12:05A door opened.

00:12:05I opened my eyes.

00:12:07My father was standing in the doorway.

00:12:08Eyes red.

00:12:09Coats till on.

00:12:10The wrinkles on his face deeper than I remembered.

00:12:12You, Damien stood up.

00:12:13He stopped two feet from Damien and put both hands on Damien's shoulders.

00:12:16He did not look at me as he passed.

00:12:17Thank you.

00:12:18My father had not cried in front of me since my mother's funeral.

00:12:21He did not cry now.

00:12:22Exactly.

00:12:23But he sat on the edge of my bed and held my left hand, the one with Damien's signet still

00:12:26on the forefinger, and he did not let go for a long time.

00:12:30Dad.

00:12:30Don't talk.

00:12:31He held my hand.

00:12:32I have to.

00:12:32Sloan, don't talk.

00:12:34He looked at the signet.

00:12:34He looked at Damien standing very still by the window.

00:12:37How long?

00:12:3920 years, sir.

00:12:42I know that.

00:12:43I mean the ring.

00:12:45Five days.

00:12:45Dad nodded once.

00:12:47Slow.

00:12:53The Pierce's boy.

00:12:55The one who used to follow Sloan around the orchard at Thanksgiving, and pretend he didn't care if she shared

00:13:00her dessert.

00:13:02Yes, sir.

00:13:03Dad almost smiled.

00:13:05I told your father at the time.

00:13:07I told him what, sir?

00:13:08That you were going to be the kind of man who ran out of things to fear by the age

00:13:12of 30.

00:13:17He didn't believe me.

00:13:19He was wrong.

00:13:22Sweetheart.

00:13:26The foundation is mine again.

00:13:28As of this morning, the board approved a clean break from the Marsh Laboratory and all of his ongoing projects.

00:13:37The audit will be public when it drops.

00:13:39The audit will be public when it drops.

00:13:39Your name will be cleared as of Friday morning.

00:13:42The donor wall in Cambridge will be re-engraved with your sole credit on the Whitfield Climate Initiative.

00:13:49Dad, that's-

00:13:50That's seven years of your life, Sloan.

00:13:52Not a favor.

00:13:54He pressed my hand.

00:13:55He stood up.

00:13:56He kissed my forehead the way he had when I was a child home from school with strep.

00:14:04I'm gonna step outside and let you rest.

00:14:06I'll be in the hall.

00:14:07He looked at Damien.

00:14:08Crane.

00:14:09Sir.

00:14:11When she's better, we talk.

00:14:15Yes, sir.

00:14:18The door closed.

00:14:22I looked at Damien.

00:14:24I had known him for a long time.

00:14:27He gave you permission?

00:14:28He sat back down on the edge of the bed.

00:14:31He didn't have to.

00:14:31I never asked him for any.

00:14:36But yes, he did.

00:14:40I'll wait until you're ready.

00:14:44For what?

00:14:45He almost smiled.

00:14:46Not quite.

00:14:48Everything.

00:15:00Friday morning.

00:15:01The audit dropped.

00:15:02It hit the internet at 6 a.m.

00:15:04Eastern.

00:15:04A leak coordinated, presumably, by Damien's communications team went to a science investigative reporter at a respected outlet.

00:15:11By 8.

00:15:11The headline had been picked up by every major U.S. paper.

00:15:15By 10.

00:15:15The hashtag was trending.

00:15:16Garcia walked into my room with a tablet and a tray of fresh squeezed orange juice.

00:15:20216 articles since 6.

00:15:23She tapped the screen.

00:15:26Glaciotology star falls in Whitefield Foundation fraud probe inside the Reguling cover-up.

00:15:32I scrolled.

00:15:32Photographs of Preston.

00:15:33Photographs of the Rangel camp.

00:15:35A still from the radio archive showing the timestamp on Preston's order to disable my beacon.

00:15:40A photograph of the equipment crate I had spent the night inside, with claw marks down the side.

00:15:45Taken by a federal investigator the morning after my evacuation.

00:15:49The comments were brutal.

00:15:50If this is what academic excellence looks like.

00:15:53This man let his girlfriend bleed in the snow for a grand.

00:15:56The deputy who turned off her beacon should be in handcuffs by lunch.

00:15:59I scrolled until I found Reagan.

00:16:02She had preempted the audit.

00:16:04Sloan Whitfield could have died.

00:16:07Cry harder.

00:16:09I closed the tablet.

00:16:10How is Preston taking it?

00:16:11He has not been seen leaving his apartment.

00:16:13The university has placed him on administrative leave pending Wednesday's hearing.

00:16:17Riley Pope has been charged.

00:16:18He pleaded out.

00:16:1918 months federal with cooperation.

00:16:21Reagan Snow's lawyer issued a statement at 7am claiming she will fully cooperate.

00:16:26Dr. Reeves announced his retirement at 6.30.

00:16:29Effective immediately.

00:16:30The university accepted within the hour.

00:16:32I exhaled.

00:16:33The wound did not mind anymore.

00:16:35In a meeting.

00:16:36He'll be back at noon.

00:16:37He left this for you.

00:16:38She slid a small white card onto the tray.

00:16:41I picked it up.

00:16:41By Saturday, I was sitting upright in a chair by the window.

00:16:45By Sunday, I was walking the corridor twice a day with a nurse at my elbow.

00:16:49By Monday, they had moved me out of the ICU and into a regular suite on the 14th floor.

00:16:53Where the view stretched all the way down across the East River.

00:16:56The flowers had started arriving Friday afternoon and had not stopped.

00:16:59The first arrangement was from my graduate school cohort.

00:17:02The second from the foundation board.

00:17:04The third and this one had made me sit up from the chair of the National Science Foundation, who had

00:17:08written a personal note saying he had been appalled.

00:17:11And that I should consider, when I was well enough, picking up the principal investigator role on the project that

00:17:16had been Preston's.

00:17:17The fourth came with no card.

00:17:18You're upright.

00:17:20I'm upright.

00:17:22I'm upright.

00:17:23How does it feel?

00:17:23Like I have a hole in my chest, but a much smaller one than yesterday.

00:17:27He almost smiled.

00:17:28From you?

00:17:30Hmm.

00:17:32Narcissus.

00:17:33From the lake house.

00:17:35Hmm.

00:17:38Damien.

00:17:39He met my eyes.

00:17:41How long?

00:17:44The flower?

00:17:46Since you were 12?

00:17:48Not the flower.

00:17:49He sat on the edge of the bed.

00:17:51I sat with that.

00:17:51Sloan.

00:17:5220 years.

00:17:53I was 29.

00:17:5420 years.

00:17:55That meant when I had cried to him about my freshman year boyfriend at 16 he had already known.

00:17:59That meant every time, over the long stretch of years, he had appeared at the edge of my life with

00:18:02the precise timing of a person who was paying very close attention.

00:18:05Without ever announcing himself, I looked at the signet on my left hand.

00:18:11Damien.

00:18:12Hmm.

00:18:16Why didn't you ever say?

00:18:18Damien took a long time to answer.

00:18:20The light from the window had begun to thin.

00:18:22The kind of New York winter dusk that turns everything blue.

00:18:25When you were 12, you were 12.

00:18:27There was nothing to say.

00:18:29When you were 16, you were dating that boy.

00:18:31You were happy.

00:18:32There was nothing to say.

00:18:34When you were 19, you came home from college and told me you'd met a graduate student named Preston.

00:18:38Marsh.

00:18:40You wanted to know what I thought of him.

00:18:44I told you he was fine.

00:18:46You told me he was fine.

00:18:48He wasn't fine.

00:18:50I knew he wasn't fine.

00:18:53But you wanted permission.

00:18:54You were not asking me what I thought of him.

00:18:58You were asking me to bless what you had already decided.

00:19:02You blessed it anyway.

00:19:04I blessed it anyway.

00:19:06Why?

00:19:06He looked down at his hands.

00:19:08Because if I'd said no, you would have done it anyway.

00:19:10And I would have lost you for the next decade instead of being able to sit across a holiday table

00:19:14from you twice a year.

00:19:17I made a calculation.

00:19:18The calculation was wrong.

00:19:20He looked up.

00:19:22I would have made a different one.

00:19:24If I had known.

00:19:26Known what?

00:19:28That he would put a hole in your chest.

00:19:30The room held the sentence.

00:19:31I felt the wound stir.

00:19:32It did not hurt the same way anymore.

00:19:34It hurt differently.

00:19:35Like something was being said through it.

00:19:37And not done to it.

00:19:38It wasn't his hole.

00:19:40It was an ice shard.

00:19:41It was his hole.

00:19:42He left you with it.

00:19:43He turned off your beacon.

00:19:45He drove away.

00:19:46He did not soften the statement.

00:19:48The shape of the wound is ice-full.

00:19:49And you crossed the country.

00:19:51The cause of the wound is Preston Marsh.

00:19:53I would have crossed any country.

00:19:58Damien.

00:19:59He did not look away.

00:20:04I'm not gonna forgive him.

00:20:06I know.

00:20:07I'm not gonna take him back.

00:20:09I know.

00:20:11I am, however, going to need a minute.

00:20:19I've spent a lifetime waiting for you, Sloane.

00:20:25Take all the time you need.

00:20:27He stood.

00:20:27He bent forward.

00:20:28His lips brushed my forehead.

00:20:29Light the way an older brother might.

00:20:31The way a person who had been disciplined about a feeling for a very long time might.

00:20:34When the door was finally cracked open.

00:20:36I have a meeting at 7.

00:20:37I'll be back at 9.

00:20:39Damien.

00:20:42Don't be late.

00:20:43He almost smiled.

00:20:44He left.

00:20:45The narcissist on the windowsill held their pale yellow in the blue light.

00:20:50Tuesday afternoon.

00:20:51Preston was arraigned.

00:20:52I did not watch the live stream.

00:20:54Garcia told me about it after the fact.

00:20:56Sitting in the chair by my bed with her tablet face down on her knee.

00:20:59She summarized in her efficient.

00:21:01Neutral voice.

00:21:02The same voice she used to read me the morning's flower deliveries.

00:21:05Preston had been processed through the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

00:21:09The charges were read loud.

00:21:11Federal embezzlement and wire fraud.

00:21:14Knowingly dissaying a fellow team member's emergency equipment in a hazardous environment.

00:21:18And falsification of federal grant documentation.

00:21:31His bail had been set at $1 million.

00:21:34His attorney had argued he was not a flight risk.

00:21:37The prosecution had pointed to the Whitfield Foundation audit and to a passport that, on inspection, contained a sealed visa

00:21:44for a country with no extradition treaty.

00:21:58Bail remained at $1 million.

00:22:00His passport was revoked.

00:22:02How did he look?

00:22:04Smaller.

00:22:06Smaller.

00:22:07Smaller?

00:22:07At faculty fundraisers, he carried himself like a man waiting to be the smartest in any room.

00:22:12Today, he carried himself like a man waiting to be told what to do.

00:22:15She set the tablet on the bedside table.

00:22:17Mr. Crane wants me to tell you, Wednesday's ethics committee hearing has been moved to 10am.

00:22:22The university requested that you attend by video link.

00:22:25You may decline.

00:22:26I'll attend.

00:22:28Mr. Crane suspected you would.

00:22:32She rose.

00:22:33Is there anything else, Ms. Whitfield?

00:22:35One thing.

00:22:38Reagan.

00:22:39She has not been arraigned.

00:22:40The U.S. Attorney's Office is finalizing terms.

00:22:43She will testify against Preston and Dr. Reeves.

00:22:46She will not be testifying against you.

00:22:47She will likely receive limited immunity on the fraud charges.

00:22:50A deferred prosecution agreement, community service, and a permanent bar from federally funded research.

00:22:56She still has her social media.

00:22:58She still has her social media.

00:22:59The court cannot regulate that.

00:23:01That's fine.

00:23:03Let her have it.

00:23:05Mr. Crane will be displeased.

00:23:07Mr. Crane will live.

00:23:08Garcia paused.

00:23:10Halfway to the door.

00:23:11Garcia tilted her head a fraction.

00:23:13She almost laughed.

00:23:14She left.

00:23:14I lay back against the pillows and watched the narcissist tilt slowly toward the late afternoon sun.

00:23:19Wednesday morning, 10a.

00:23:20M. Garcia rolled in a portable monitor on a tray and angled it toward the bed.

00:23:24The ethics committee at Preston's university convened on screen seven chairs around a heavy wood table in a paneled room

00:23:30I had been inside.

00:23:31Once, during my own thesis defense, when Reeves had introduced me as one of his students, Reeves was not at

00:23:36the table today.

00:23:37He had retired Friday morning.

00:23:39The chair of the committee, a tall woman in her 60s whose hair was twisted into a low knot, opened

00:23:43the proceedings.

00:23:45Mr. Marsh, do you have anything to say before we begin?

00:23:48Preston rose from his seat at the foot of the table.

00:23:50He had aged a decade and five days.

00:23:53The polished hair was unkempt.

00:23:54The pressed shirt was open at the collar without a tie.

00:23:57I do.

00:23:58His voice was flatter than I had ever heard it.

00:24:00Whatever the committee decides, I accept.

00:24:04I acknowledge the irregularities in the funding records of the Regling expedition.

00:24:09I acknowledge the irregularities in the authorship history of the manuscripts under review.

00:24:15On the day of the avalanche, I did not handle the evacuation of my team as I should have.

00:24:20The chair did not soften.

00:24:22I accept the consequences of those choices.

00:24:24The committee has reviewed the audit, the field radio archive, the wire records, and the personal contribution log of Sloan

00:24:31Whitfield.

00:24:32The committee has also reviewed the statement obtained this morning under cooperation agreement from Riley Pope.

00:24:39Do you acknowledge that you transmitted a radio instruction to disable Sloan Whitfield's emergency locator here?

00:24:48The room is very still.

00:24:51I do.

00:24:56At the time you transmitted that instruction, were you aware that Sloan Whitfield was injured?

00:25:01And at the edge of the camp perimeter?

00:25:07I do.

00:25:09Mr. Marsh, the committee finds the following.

00:25:13You have engaged in academic misconduct of the most serious kind.

00:25:18Your conduct on the day of the avalanche endangered the life of a fellow expedition member.

00:25:24The body of work submitted under your sole authorship for the past four years contains substantial material taken from the

00:25:31unpublished work of Sloan Whitnik without consent or adibution.

00:25:40The committee recommends that your tenure be revoked.

00:25:42Your doctoral supervision rights be terminated and the five most recent publications under your name be retracted.

00:25:47You'd be permanently barred from holding any federally funded academic appointment.

00:25:51The regular climate proxies grant should be revoked and the funds returned.

00:25:55Do you wish to respond?

00:25:58Preston was silent for a long time.

00:26:00No.

00:26:01Then he sat back down.

00:26:07The chair rose.

00:26:08The committee rose with her.

00:26:10This hearing is adjourned.

00:26:11The screen went black.

00:26:17I sat for a moment in the dim hospital room.

00:26:20Garcia rolled the monitor away.

00:26:26It's done.

00:26:29It's done.

00:26:32It's done.

00:26:33It's done.

00:26:38It's done.

00:26:38He came on Thursday.

00:26:40Not by appointment.

00:26:41There's a man at security in the lobby asking to see you.

00:26:44He's same.

00:26:45He said his name was Preston Marsh.

00:26:47I had told Garcia.

00:26:48He said he doesn't expect you to say yes.

00:26:51Let him up.

00:26:52That I would receive him.

00:26:53I had thought about it carefully.

00:26:54I had thought about it the way Damien thought about a chain of evidence not for spite.

00:26:58Not for forgiveness.

00:26:59But to close the circuit.

00:27:00I had spent seven years inside that circuit.

00:27:03I needed to walk out under my own power.

00:27:05Damien was in a meeting on the other side of town.

00:27:07I had not told him I had agreed to this.

00:27:09I had not told him I had not agreed to this either.

00:27:12The door opened.

00:27:13Preston stood in the doorway.

00:27:14He did not come in.

00:27:15He looked exactly as he had on the video feed except smaller.

00:27:18Somehow.

00:27:18In person.

00:27:19The way Garcia had said.

00:27:20The charcoal suit replaced by jeans and a sweater that did not fit him quite right.

00:27:24The glass is askew.

00:27:33Sloan.

00:27:34Get up.

00:27:35I won't.

00:27:36I'm not asking.

00:27:37He stayed where he was.

00:27:39I came to apologize.

00:27:43He breathed in once.

00:27:44At once.

00:27:46I owe you an apology I cannot make in two pages.

00:27:50I wrote it badly.

00:27:53Every grant.

00:27:54Every piece of equipment.

00:27:56Every late night.

00:27:59I knew.

00:28:00I always knew.

00:28:02I told myself a story about it that let me sleep.

00:28:05And the night of the avalanche.

00:28:08I told Riley to turn off the beacon.

00:28:12I told myself the Whitfields would send a plane.

00:28:16I told myself you would always have a way out.

00:28:21That's what I told myself.

00:28:23So leaving you in the snow had no consequence.

00:28:33That's what I told myself.

00:28:35The room held it.

00:28:37I let it hold.

00:28:49Preston.

00:28:50He looked up.

00:28:52Get off the floor.

00:28:55I won't

00:28:56You will

00:28:58Because this is my room

00:28:59In my hospital, in my city

00:29:01And I'm telling you to

00:29:03He got off the floor

00:29:04He stood near the foot of my bed

00:29:05Three things

00:29:06Hands at his sides

00:29:07Head still bowed

00:29:08One

00:29:09I am not retracting any of the charges

00:29:11The federal case will proceed

00:29:14Your career will not survive it

00:29:16That is not negotiable

00:29:19I haven't

00:29:21Two

00:29:22I will not be writing a victim impact statement

00:29:25That asks the court for leniency

00:29:28I will be writing one that asks the court to apply

00:29:30The full weight of the statute

00:29:32You are free to write your own

00:29:33You are free to ask Dr. Rivals to write his own

00:29:37Understood

00:29:39Three

00:29:41I looked at him for a long time

00:29:43He had once been a man I would have crossed any distance to please

00:29:47There had been a year, possibly two

00:29:49When I had organized my entire life around the question of what Preston would think

00:29:53I looked at him now and I felt nothing

00:29:55Not contempt

00:29:56Not pity

00:29:57Not love

00:29:58Not even anger

00:29:59A clean nothing

00:30:00The way you might look at a coat you wore through college

00:30:02Hanging in the back of a closet

00:30:04And feel surprised that you had ever fit into it

00:30:11I do not accept it

00:30:17Not because it isn't sincere

00:30:20Today it might be

00:30:21I think it might be

00:30:23What I have learned

00:30:24What I have learned

00:30:25In seven years of you

00:30:26Is that your sincerity is a renewable resource

00:30:29It comes back every time the consequences arrive

00:30:33It always sound the same

00:30:35It always asks the same thing

00:30:37Which is for me to absorb the cost

00:30:40I'm done absorbing the cost

00:30:45You will live with what you did

00:30:48I will not be helping you live with it

00:30:51For a moment I thought he might say something more

00:30:53Some version of the speech

00:30:54Refined now to its purest form

00:30:56That he had been delivering to me

00:30:57In fragments

00:30:58For seven years

00:30:59He didn't

00:31:00He closed his eyes once

00:31:01He opened them

00:31:02I understand

00:31:03He walked to the door

00:31:04In the doorway

00:31:05He paused

00:31:06He did not look back

00:31:07Sloan

00:31:09Yes

00:31:10Be happy

00:31:14The door closed behind him

00:31:15I sat alone in the hospital suite

00:31:17With the late afternoon light

00:31:18Moving slowly across the floor

00:31:19I waited to feel something

00:31:21After a long time

00:31:22I noticed what I felt

00:31:23Was the absence of something

00:31:24A weight I had been carrying

00:31:25Since the year I was 22

00:31:28For seven years

00:31:29I carried that weight

00:31:30I turned my life into a project

00:31:32Just to be seen

00:31:34I piled up my efforts as evidence

00:31:37But I don't need to be seen by him anymore

00:31:42When I had decided

00:31:43That the rest of my life

00:31:45Was going to be a project

00:31:46Of making one specific man see me

00:31:48It was no longer there

00:31:49I picked up my phone

00:31:50I texted Damien

00:31:52Come back when you can

00:31:54He answered within 10 seconds

00:31:56On my way

00:31:58Damien did not knock

00:31:59The door to my hospital suite

00:32:00Opened 12 minutes

00:32:01After Preston walked out of it

00:32:03And Damien stood in the doorway

00:32:04With snow still melting on his shoulders

00:32:06He did not look at me first

00:32:08He looked at the chair

00:32:09Where Preston had been kneeling

00:32:10He looked at the spot

00:32:11On the carpet

00:32:12Where Preston's knees

00:32:13Had pressed two indentations

00:32:14He looked at the trace of Cologne

00:32:16Preston's

00:32:17Faint

00:32:17Civilian still hanging in the air

00:32:19He crossed the room in five strides

00:32:22Did he touch you?

00:32:26Damien

00:32:28Sloan

00:32:29Did he touch you?

00:32:31No

00:32:37His thumbs moved across my cheekbones

00:32:39My temples

00:32:40The line of my jaw checking

00:32:42The way a person checks a child

00:32:44After they have fallen

00:32:49I should not have left this morning

00:32:52I asked Garcia to let him up

00:32:56I know

00:32:57She called me on the drive back

00:32:59I broke three traffic laws

00:33:01Damien

00:33:02I would have broken 30

00:33:10Look at me

00:33:19I had not

00:33:20In all the time I had known him

00:33:22Seen Damien Crane afraid of anything

00:33:24Not his father

00:33:26Not his mother

00:33:27Not a boardroom

00:33:28Not a press conference

00:33:30Not the leverage held over him

00:33:32By half of Manhattan

00:33:34He was afraid now

00:33:35He was afraid that I had spent

00:33:3712 minutes in a room

00:33:38With the man I had loved

00:33:39For seven years

00:33:40And that 12 minutes

00:33:42Was all it took for me

00:33:43To forgive him

00:33:45I told him no

00:33:48I know

00:33:49I told him to leave

00:33:53I know

00:33:55I am not going back to him

00:33:57He closed his eyes

00:33:58He pressed his forehead to mine

00:34:00He stayed there

00:34:01Breathing

00:34:02For a long time

00:34:09Sloan

00:34:11I am about to be very selfish

00:34:14Be selfish

00:34:17I do not want to leave this room again

00:34:20Then don't

00:34:23He did not

00:34:34He did not sleep that night

00:34:36The chair he pulled up to my bed

00:34:38Was leather and too small

00:34:39He folded himself into it anyway

00:34:42He held my left hand inside both of his

00:34:44And watched the heart monitor

00:34:46As if it might lie

00:34:47If he looked away

00:34:47Sometime around 3 a.m

00:34:50I pretended to be asleep

00:34:51Just to see what he would do

00:34:53He stood up

00:34:54He walked to the window

00:34:55He looked out at the east river

00:34:57For 10 minutes

00:34:58He turned back

00:34:59He stood at the foot of the bed

00:35:01And watched my chest rise and fall

00:35:03Counting

00:35:03With the precision of a man

00:35:05Who had once counted my pulse

00:35:06On a medevac

00:35:07Then he came back to the chair

00:35:08He leaned in

00:35:10He pressed his lips

00:35:11Very lightly

00:35:12To the inside of my wrist

00:35:13Where the ivy line went in

00:35:14He whispered into my skin

00:35:31I am sorry

00:35:32I did not come sooner

00:35:36When

00:35:40You were awake

00:35:42Sooner when, Damien?

00:35:49Eight years ago

00:35:51When?

00:35:52The night you came home from grad school for the holiday

00:35:55You laughed at something Preston said about a sample I had never heard of

00:35:59I went home and painted 700 Nassaville on a wall

00:36:03And decided I would wait

00:36:06I should have come for you that night

00:36:09Damien

00:36:11I would have

00:36:12If I had known how it would end

00:36:15He looked at the signet on my fourth finger

00:36:18I bought this a long time ago

00:36:21This ring?

00:36:23This ring

00:36:25For me?

00:36:26For the day I stopped waiting

00:36:30I waited far longer than I should have

00:36:32I am not waiting an hour longer than I have to

00:36:36Damien

00:36:37Hmm

00:36:39What are you telling me?

00:36:41He met my eyes

00:36:47I am telling you that the rest of my life starts at sunrise

00:36:50When you walk out of this hospital

00:36:52You walk into my house

00:36:59And you do not walk out of it again unless I am holding the door

00:37:06The next person who tries to take you from me

00:37:08Will spend the rest of his life regretting it

00:37:26Faster

00:37:27Good

00:37:36Discharge day

00:37:36Damien did not let a nurse touch me

00:37:39He sent the wheelchair away

00:37:40He sent the orderly away

00:37:42He scooped me out of the bed with one arm under my knees and one behind my shoulders and carried

00:37:47me

00:37:47Slowly

00:37:48The length of the corridor to the elevator

00:37:50I had walked

00:37:51By then

00:37:52The length of that corridor on my own three times

00:37:55I did not need to be carried

00:37:57I did not object

00:37:59The elevator opened in the underground garage

00:38:01A black idled

00:38:02He set me down only long enough to open the door

00:38:05And then he lifted me again into the back seat as if the act of placing me there himself was

00:38:09something he could not delegate

00:38:10Garcia

00:38:11In the front passenger seat

00:38:13Did not turn around

00:38:14The pulled out

00:38:15Damien did not let go of my hand on the drive uptown

00:38:29I bought the building

00:38:31Which building?

00:38:33My building

00:38:33I own the penthouse

00:38:35I bought the rest of it last month

00:38:36All of it?

00:38:37All of it

00:38:39Why?

00:38:41I did not want strangers across a wall from you

00:38:46Damien

00:38:51The other residents have been compensated above market

00:38:53They had 90 days to relocate

00:38:55The last unit cleared on Friday

00:38:57The building is empty except for the staff I vetted

00:39:01And the floor I am going to put your father on if he wants it

00:39:04My father has a house

00:39:06He has a house

00:39:07He may also have the 8th floor

00:39:10Damien

00:39:10You are being excessive

00:39:14I am told I am being excessive

00:39:18He brought my hand to his mouth

00:39:19Tell me to stop

00:39:21I am not telling you to stop

00:39:24I can't bear to

00:39:27The pulled into the garage

00:39:32He carried me into the elevator

00:39:33The doors opened directly into his foyer

00:39:36Into the wall of painted narcissus

00:39:38And he set me down in front of it

00:39:47I looked

00:39:48A second wall

00:39:50Opposite the first

00:39:51Had been painted in my absence

00:39:53Cores

00:39:54The shapes of ice cores

00:39:5637 of them

00:39:57One for every site I had drilled in 7 years

00:40:00Labeled in white paint in my own handwriting

00:40:02Which had been copied

00:40:03Line for line

00:40:04From photographs of the field journal Reagan had stolen

00:40:07I could not speak

00:40:16I commissioned it in March

00:40:17The artist worked from your notebooks

00:40:19I had the originals returned from the federal evidence locker on a temporary basis

00:40:24They are now back in the locker

00:40:26Damien

00:40:27The paintings are yours

00:40:29Welcome home Sloan

00:40:31The first week in his apartment

00:40:32I learned how he had been loving me for a long time

00:40:35I learned it in small pieces

00:40:37The way a person learns the contents of a house they have moved into without a tour

00:40:40A bookshelf in the library held every paper I had ever published even the undergraduate ones

00:40:45Even the conference posters bound in matching cloth and arranged in chronological order

00:40:50A drawer in the kitchen held my mother's recipe for soda bread

00:40:53Hand copied from her handwriting onto a card he had laminated

00:40:56A folder in his study kept in a drawer he did not lock contained years of photographs of me

00:41:01Clipped from family Christmas cards and university newsletters and the society pages

00:41:06I found the folder on the sixth day

00:41:08I did not tell him I had found it

00:41:10I sat on the floor of his study and turned through the photographs in order

00:41:14And at the back of the folder I found a single envelope

00:41:16Sealed addressed to me in his handwriting and dated a long time ago

00:41:20I almost opened it

00:41:21I did not

00:41:22I left it where it was

00:41:23That night at dinner

00:41:24I asked him

00:41:25The letter in the back of the folder

00:41:27He set his fork down

00:41:28He did not pretend to misunderstand

00:41:30You found it

00:41:32What is it?

00:41:34It is what I would have said to you that night if I had come for you instead of painting

00:41:37the wall

00:41:39You kept it

00:41:41I kept everything

00:41:42Damien

00:41:43I have kept the napkin you wrote your phone number on when you were eleven

00:41:46I have kept the wrapper of the chocolate you split with me at your sister's Christensen

00:41:49I have kept the program of every recital your mother dragged us to

00:41:52I have kept the cockscrew you used to open the wine at your graduation dinner

00:41:55I have kept the boarding pass you gave me when you came back from Iceland the year you turned 23

00:42:00And asked if I would pick you up from JF because your boyfriend had forgotten

00:42:05He met my eyes

00:42:06I have kept all of it because I had to keep something

00:42:08I set my fork down too

00:42:10How many marriages did your mother arrange for you?

00:42:13Three

00:42:15You refused all three?

00:42:17I refused all three

00:42:19For me?

00:42:21Sloan

00:42:22Everything I have ever refused I refused for you

00:42:25His mother came on Tuesday

00:42:26She had not

00:42:27In the seven years I dated Preston

00:42:29Sent me so much as a holiday card

00:42:31She came now with a bouquet of pale pink peonies

00:42:34And a smile that did not reach her eyes

00:42:36And she sat across from me in Damien's living room

00:42:39With the careful posture of a woman conducting a negotiation

00:42:42She expected to win

00:42:43Damien stood by the window

00:42:44He did not sit

00:42:45He did not greet his mother

00:42:48Sloan and dear

00:42:48I came to welcome you

00:42:49Mrs. Crane

00:42:50I imagine all of this has been very overwhelming

00:42:52The hospital

00:42:53The press

00:42:53My son's enthusiasm

00:42:55His enthusiasm

00:42:55He has always been intense

00:42:58Particularly about the things he has wanted for a long time

00:43:01I wonder if you have considered, my dear

00:43:03Whether intensity about this stage in your recovery is perhaps what you need

00:43:06By the window

00:43:07Damien turned

00:43:08He did not raise his voice

00:43:09Mother

00:43:11Damien

00:43:11You have ten seconds to walk out of this apartment

00:43:16Damien, I am only

00:43:18Eight seconds

00:43:19You will not speak to me

00:43:21Six seconds

00:43:23The peonies

00:43:24Untouched on the coffee table

00:43:26Trembled with the vibration of the elevator returning to the foyer

00:43:29She rose

00:43:29She gathered her coat

00:43:31She looked at me with the same smile pulled tight across her face

00:43:34My dear

00:43:35When this novelty passes

00:43:36Two seconds

00:43:37She left the elevator doors closed

00:43:39Damien did not move for a long moment

00:43:41Then he crossed the room and knelt in front of the chair where I was sitting

00:43:45He took both my hands

00:43:47Sloan

00:43:48Damien

00:43:49My mother will not be in this apartment again

00:43:51Damien, she's your mother

00:43:52My mother spent a long time telling me I would forget you if I tried hard enough

00:43:55She introduced me to fourteen women whose family is my last name

00:43:58She told my father at one point that I was an embarrassment to the family for refusing to marry

00:44:02She does not get to walk in here now and call you a novelty

00:44:04There is no version of this where you are second to anyone Sloan

00:44:07Not my mother

00:44:09Not the company

00:44:11Not the past

00:44:12He pressed my knuckles to his mouth

00:44:15Not for the rest of my life

00:44:17He visited Preston in prison on a Wednesday

00:44:20I did not know he had gone until he came home and sat across from me at the kitchen island

00:44:24And poured himself a glass of whiskey and told me

00:44:27I went to see Marsh today

00:44:28Damien

00:44:29I had to

00:44:31Why?

00:44:33I wanted him to see my face

00:44:35He turned the glass in his fingers

00:44:37He has been telling himself since the hearing that what happened to him was the system

00:44:41That the audit broke him

00:44:43That the federal prosecutor broke him

00:44:45That the press broke him

00:44:47I wanted him to know it was a man

00:44:49What did you say to him?

00:44:52I sat across a steel table from her 14 minutes

00:44:54I didn't speak for the first 10

00:44:56He waited

00:44:56He was the one who broke

00:44:57He asked me what I wanted

00:44:59I told him I wanted him to understand exactly what he had done

00:45:02That he had touched a woman I had loved for a long time

00:45:05That he had taken 7 years of her life and gambled them on a press release

00:45:09That he had left her in the snow because he assumed her family would clean it up

00:45:12I told him that the part he didn't understand and would now have years to understand

00:45:15Was that there had never been a moment in all the time he had known her when she was unprotected

00:45:19I told him that he was alive only because you had asked me not to make a different decision

00:45:22He drank

00:45:25He cried

00:45:27Damien

00:45:27I did not enjoy it

00:45:29Did you not?

00:45:30He set down the glass

00:45:32I enjoyed every second of it I'm not going to pretend otherwise

00:45:35I sat across from a man who had hurt you and I watched him understand

00:45:38For the first time that he had been a small animal stepping on the tail of a much larger one

00:45:43He came around the island

00:45:44He stopped in front of me

00:45:45He cupped the back of my neck the way he had cupped my skull in the tent

00:45:49That is what I am Sloan

00:45:50With respect to you

00:45:52I

00:45:53Am the much larger animal

00:45:55I will be that animal for the rest of your life

00:45:57For any person who looks at you sideways

00:45:58I am not going to pretend to be a different one

00:46:00Tell me you understand

00:46:03I understand

00:46:04He pressed his forehead to mine

00:46:07Good

00:46:08Reagan called the apartment on a Thursday

00:46:10She had been told

00:46:12By every lawyer involved

00:46:13Not to

00:46:14The no contact clause was in effect

00:46:16She called anyway

00:46:17Through the main line of Crane Industries

00:46:19Asking to be put through to me by name

00:46:21The receptionist forwarded the call to Garcia

00:46:24Garcia forwarded it to Damien

00:46:25Damien answered on speaker

00:46:27In front of me

00:46:28At the kitchen island

00:46:29Miss Snow

00:46:32Master Crane

00:46:33I am calling because

00:46:35You are calling because your book deal collapsed

00:46:38Your father's foundation has been quietly delisted from three donor circles in the last six weeks

00:46:42Your fiancé's family has rescinded the engagement

00:46:45Your apartment lease is not being renewed

00:46:47And you have correctly disduced that all of this is connected

00:46:50Silence

00:46:51It is connected

00:46:52Mr. Crane

00:46:55I would like you to listen to me very carefully, Miss Snow

00:46:57The reason your life is currently coming apart

00:47:00Is not because I am vindictive

00:47:01I am perfectly capable of vindictiveness

00:47:04I have not yet been vindictive with you

00:47:06The reason your life is coming apart

00:47:07Is because the woman whose career you tried to take

00:47:10Whose data you stole

00:47:11And whose recording I played in front of you in a tent at minus 31

00:47:14Asked me three months ago to leave you alone

00:47:16I have honored that request

00:47:21I have, how however, not asked any other person who knows you did to honor it

00:47:26It turns out there are a great number of those people

00:47:28They are removing you, on their own, from the rooms they control

00:47:32The book editor at the publishing house was a former student of Sloan's

00:47:35The donor coordinator at your father's foundation served on a Whitfield panel four years ago

00:47:38Your fiancé's mother has been on the board of the Whitfield Climate Initiative since 2011

00:47:43They are not retaliating, Miss Snow

00:47:45They are simply choosing

00:47:47Mr. Crane, please

00:47:48I am not the one you should be asking, Miss Snow

00:47:51He ended the call

00:47:52He set down the phone

00:47:53He looked at me

00:47:55She will call again

00:47:56She will eventually call you

00:47:58She might

00:47:59I would like permission

00:48:00When she does to make a small adjustment to her circumstances

00:48:03What adjustment?

00:48:05A federal investigation currently dormant into the source of the wire that funded her Arigigrewit internship

00:48:10Damien

00:48:11I will only act if you tell me to

00:48:12I looked at him for a long moment

00:48:14I did not tell him to

00:48:16I also did not tell him not to

00:48:17He read my face

00:48:19He nodded once

00:48:20He poured me a cup of tea

00:48:21The nights were the hardest

00:48:23I had not, in seven years with Preston

00:48:26Slept poorly

00:48:27I had slept on his couches and in his tents and across his shoulders on long flights

00:48:32And I had slept the way a person who believed in the structure of her life slept

00:48:35The structure was gone now

00:48:37The nights showed it

00:48:38I did not tell Damien

00:48:39He noticed anyway

00:48:41He noticed on the fourth night

00:48:42When he came up to bring me a book I had asked for

00:48:45And found me sitting on the couch by the south windows with the lights off

00:48:49He set the book down

00:48:50He sat next to me

00:48:51He did not ask

00:48:53He simply pulled me, carefully

00:48:55Against his shoulder

00:48:56And we sat that way until the city lights began to thin toward dawn

00:49:00On the fifth night

00:49:01He came up at ten

00:49:02On the sixth night

00:49:03He came up at nine

00:49:04On the seventh night

00:49:06He stayed

00:49:06He did not ask permission

00:49:08He came up with a small leather bag and a book and the smallest

00:49:11Most contained smile I had ever seen on his face

00:49:14And he said

00:49:16Sloan, I am going to sleep in the second bedroom

00:49:18The door will be open

00:49:20If you need me, you say my name

00:49:21You do not have to get up

00:49:22You do not have to ring a bell

00:49:24You say my name

00:49:24And I will be in the room in under three seconds

00:49:27Damien

00:49:28I am not asking for anything

00:49:33I know

00:49:34I am telling you that for the rest of your life

00:49:36If you say my name in the dark

00:49:38I will be there in under three seconds

00:49:40He kissed my forehead

00:49:42He went into the second bedroom

00:49:44He left the door open

00:49:45I lay in my own bed for the first hour

00:49:47I listened to the sounds of him in the next room

00:49:49The small zipper of the leather bag

00:49:51The click of a lamp

00:49:52The soft rustle of a turned page

00:49:54At eleven thirty

00:49:55The page turning stopped

00:49:57He had fallen asleep with the book on his chest

00:49:59I got up

00:50:00I crossed the hallway

00:50:01I stood in the doorway of the second bedroom

00:50:03And watched him sleep a man in a charcoal pullover

00:50:06And reading glasses

00:50:07In a guest bed in his own house

00:50:09Lit by a single lamp

00:50:10He had been waiting a long time to sleep in the same hallway as me

00:50:14I went back to my room

00:50:15I left both doors open

00:50:17I slept the whole night through

00:50:19He gave me the cranes on a Sunday

00:50:20I had told him

00:50:21Two weeks earlier

00:50:23In the way a person tells a story that no longer matters

00:50:25That as a child I had folded a wish into a paper crane

00:50:28And put it in a jar on my bedroom windowsill

00:50:30The wish had been for my mother to get well

00:50:32My mother had not gotten well

00:50:34I had stopped folding cranes

00:50:36He had said nothing at the time

00:50:37He had simply nodded

00:50:39He led me to the library that Sunday morning

00:50:41He opened the double doors

00:50:43The room three stories of bookshelves

00:50:45A leather sofa

00:50:46His piano against the back wall had been filled

00:50:48Since I had last been in it the day before

00:50:51With paper cranes

00:50:52There were thousands of them

00:50:53They hung from the ceiling on threads of clear nylon

00:50:56In soft drifts

00:50:57At different heights

00:50:58In the pale yellow of winter narcissus

00:51:00I stopped in the doorway

00:51:01One thousand

00:51:04Damien

00:51:05One for every wish I have made for you since we were children

00:51:07I kept count

00:51:09He stepped into the room

00:51:10He turned one of the cranes

00:51:12Gently on its thread

00:51:13I started after the year your mother died

00:51:15I did not know what to do with the things I wanted for you

00:51:17I started folding

00:51:17I folded one a week for the first year

00:51:19Two a week for the next

00:51:21Sometime around my underground years I lost track

00:51:22I counted them last month

00:51:24There were 947

00:51:26I folded the last 53 in the apartment downstairs while you were upstairs sleeping

00:51:31I crossed the room

00:51:32I touched one of the cranes

00:51:33The paper was thin and cool

00:51:35The crease was perfect

00:51:36I knew the fold

00:51:38It was the same fold I had used at 9

00:51:40He had been folding cranes for me

00:51:42Alone

00:51:42In his apartment

00:51:43For a long time

00:51:46Damien

00:51:46Hmm

00:51:47What were the wishes?

00:51:49He looked at me

00:51:49That you would grow up happy

00:51:50That you would grow up loved

00:51:52That you would grow up to do the work you wanted

00:51:54That you would eventually be able to come home and rest

00:51:58That you would eventually see me

00:52:01That is the only wish I never finished folding

00:52:03He reached up and unhooked a single crane from a thread above his head

00:52:07He held it out to me

00:52:08I would like you to fold the last one

00:52:10I took the crane

00:52:11It was a half fold

00:52:12The paper waiting

00:52:13The crease set

00:52:14Damien

00:52:16When you are ready

00:52:18I am ready

00:52:19I folded the last crane

00:52:20The wish I folded inside it was that I had not taken so long to see him

00:52:25I hung it on the empty thread

00:52:26He held me

00:52:27In the doorway of the library

00:52:28For a long time

00:52:32I kissed him that night

00:52:34Not the careful kiss on the couch he had given me weeks ago

00:52:37Not a kiss I was allowing him to give me

00:52:39A kiss I gave him

00:52:40I crossed the library after dinner

00:52:42He was at the piano

00:52:43Playing the eight notes my mother used to hum

00:52:45He did not see me coming

00:52:47I sat down next to him on the bench

00:52:49I waited for him to finish the phrase

00:52:51I tilted his face toward mine with two fingers under his chin

00:52:54I kissed him

00:52:55He went very still

00:52:56For a heartbeat

00:52:57He did not respond

00:52:59Then he made a small sound not a word

00:53:01Something quieter

00:53:02A sound I had never heard him make in all the time I had known him

00:53:05And his hand came up to cut the back of my neck

00:53:07And the bench creaked because he had moved without thinking

00:53:10He kissed me back the way a man kisses a person

00:53:12He has been kissing in his head every night for a long time

00:53:15When he pulled back

00:53:16Both his hands were on my face

00:53:18His breath was not steady

00:53:20His eyes had gone very dark

00:53:21Sloan

00:53:23Damien

00:53:24I would like to say something

00:53:27Say it

00:53:29I have loved you for a very long time

00:53:31I have loved you across continents

00:53:32And three engagements I refused

00:53:34And seven years of a man who was not me

00:53:36I have loved you while you cried about other men in my passenger seat

00:53:38I have loved you while you wrote thank you notes addressed to him on stationery I paid for

00:53:42I have loved you while you called me at midnight to ask which dress you should wear to his department

00:53:46dinner

00:53:46I have loved you in every shape a man can love a woman

00:53:49And still hide it

00:53:51I am not going to hide any of it from this minute forward

00:53:55Damien

00:53:58I love you

00:54:00His hands tightened on my face

00:54:01Say it again

00:54:03I love you

00:54:04Again

00:54:06I love you Damien

00:54:07He pressed his forehead to mine

00:54:09For a long moment he did not move

00:54:11He simply breathed

00:54:12Then he picked me up off the bench carefully

00:54:14With respect to the wound and walked me out of the library

00:54:17Past the wall of Narcissus

00:54:19Into the foyer

00:54:20He did not put me down at the elevator

00:54:22He carried me into the bedroom

00:54:24He set me

00:54:24Slowly

00:54:25On the edge of the bed

00:54:26He knelt on the floor in front of me

00:54:28He took both my hands

00:54:30I am not going to do anything tonight that I will not still be doing the night I die

00:54:33He looked up at me

00:54:34But I would like

00:54:35Tonight to ask you one thing

00:54:37Marry me

00:54:38The cranes

00:54:39In the library down the hall

00:54:40Turned slowly on their threads in the draft from the open window

00:54:49He did not let me go to Alaska alone

00:54:51He had agreed weeks earlier that he would not come

00:54:54He had said it himself in the kitchen that the right answer for my career was yes and the right

00:54:59answer for his heart was no

00:55:00And that he would not be the one who decided which side of the snow line I slept on

00:55:04He had meant it

00:55:05He had also

00:55:06The same night he meant it

00:55:08Started building a contingency

00:55:09I found out about the contingency on the morning of April

00:55:122nd

00:55:13He came into the breakfast room with a folder under his arm and set it down next to my coffee

00:55:17Sloney

00:55:19Hmm

00:55:20Crane Industries has launched a polar research division

00:55:25When?

00:55:28Last week

00:55:30Damien

00:55:31The division is headquarters out of Anchorage

00:55:33It is funding three independent scientific teams across the Rangel and St. Alaya ranges

00:55:38The director of the division is a 58-year-old former Nenoway scientist whose hire I personally approved at 3

00:55:43a.m. on a Sunday

00:55:44The director reports to a vice president of strategic operations

00:55:48Damien

00:55:48The vice president of strategic operations will be working out of a forward base camp in the ringlish range from

00:55:53April 15th through the close of the field season

00:55:55Damien

00:55:56The vice president of strategic operations, me

00:55:59I close the folder

00:56:00You are not coming with me to the field as my boyfriend

00:56:02I am not coming with you to the field as your boyfriend

00:56:05You are coming with me to the field as the vice president of a polar research resension you invented in

00:56:10the last three weeks

00:56:12With cover that will hold up to any audit

00:56:16Damien

00:56:16I will sleep in a separate module

00:56:18I will not interfere with your team

00:56:19I will not be on your your radio frequency

00:56:21I will however be 300 yards away every night you are in the field

00:56:24You did not have to do this

00:56:26I had to do this

00:56:29Why?

00:56:30He sat down across from me

00:56:31He took my left hand

00:56:33He looked at the signet ring he had slid onto it the night of the surgery and never asked back

00:56:37Because the last time you went to that mountain without me you came home with a hole in your chest

00:56:42I am not living through that twice

00:56:44I can take care of myself

00:56:45I know you can

00:56:47I am asking

00:56:49Please for the rest of my life to never have to find out again

00:56:52I looked at him for a long moment

00:56:53I had spent seven years asking a man to follow me to airports

00:56:57I now had a man who would follow me to ice

00:56:59All right

00:57:00He brought my hand to his mouth

00:57:03Thank you

00:57:04We landed in Anchorage on April 15th

00:57:07He had flown commercial

00:57:08Three days ahead of me

00:57:09To maintain the cover

00:57:11He met me at the airport in a Crane Industries parka with a name tag that said D

00:57:15Crane

00:57:16VP Strategic Ops and a face so neutral that even I almost believed it

00:57:20He shook my hand at the gate

00:57:21He did not kiss me

00:57:22He carried my carry on to the SUV

00:57:24In the SUV

00:57:25With the doors closed and the windows tinted

00:57:28He took my face in both hands and kissed me as if he had not seen me in a year

00:57:32Three days was too long

00:57:35Damien

00:57:35I am revising the cover

00:57:38I will be sleeping in your module

00:57:39That defeats the cover

00:57:41I do not care

00:57:44Damien

00:57:45Three days Sloan

00:57:46He kissed me again

00:57:47The cover, for the record, held

00:57:50The cold weather medic worked it out the first night

00:57:52Finn worked it out the second

00:57:54Briggs, who had transported me out of the equipment crate at Wrangell in February

00:57:58Worked it out before we even landed

00:58:00Nobody said anything

00:58:02Nobody had to

00:58:03Damien did not hide that he watched me work

00:58:05Damien did not hide that he ate every meal next to me

00:58:08Damien did not hide that when I came back from the day's transects with snow in my hair

00:58:12He met me at the door of the heated module with a towel he had warmed by the stove

00:58:15The team, by week two, simply absorbed him

00:58:18Finn said it best

00:58:20Late one night in the operations module

00:58:22After Damien had stepped out to take a call

00:58:24Sloan

00:58:25Hmm?

00:58:26I have seen a lot of men love a lot of women

00:58:28I have never seen one love a woman like that

00:58:30Like what?

00:58:32Like you are the only currency he has ever wanted

00:58:35I did not have an answer for that

00:58:37Finn went back to his clipboard

00:58:38Damien came back in

00:58:39He sat down next to me

00:58:41He set a fresh cup of tea at my elbow without asking

00:58:44He glanced at the medical chart on my clipboard

00:58:46Frowned slightly at one number on it

00:58:48And said

00:58:48Pulse is up

00:58:49I just walked in from the field

00:58:51That is not field walk pulse

00:58:54Damien

00:58:54I would like the medic to look at you tonight

00:58:56The medic looked at me that night

00:58:58The pulse was

00:58:59As it turned out

00:59:00Fine

00:59:00Damien did not apologize for asking

00:59:03In the third week

00:59:04I learned about the foundations

00:59:06I learned about them by accident

00:59:07The way I had learned about the wall of Narcissus

00:59:10And the box of cranes

00:59:11And the bound copies of every paper I had ever published

00:59:14He did not volunteer

00:59:15The

00:59:16Information

00:59:17I found it by following a thread

00:59:19The thread was a small thank you note from a graduate student in Cape Town

00:59:22That arrived at base camp by satellite mail

00:59:24The student had received a stipend from the Polar Atlas Foundation to attend a

00:59:28Conference where I had given a keynote four years earlier

00:59:31The note was effusive

00:59:32It thanked me for the body of work and the foundation for the stipend

00:59:36I had never heard of the Polar Atlas Foundation

00:59:38I looked it up

00:59:39Polar Atlas Foundation had given approximately $800,000 over the past nine years in small

00:59:45Individual stipends to graduate students in glaciology, climate science, and polar geophysics

00:59:51The recipient list was a precise map of every young researcher whose work had any tangential

00:59:56Connection to mine

00:59:56The foundation's board was three people

00:59:59None of them I had heard of

01:00:00I traced the LLC behind the foundation through three jurisdictions

01:00:03It was Damien's

01:00:05I traced four other foundations through the same pattern

01:00:07Northern Light Trust

01:00:09Ice and Salt Initiative

01:00:10The 1,962 foundation

01:00:14Named

01:00:15I realized

01:00:16For the year of the lock at the lake house

01:00:18The Whitfield Adjacent Fellowship

01:00:20Together they had quietly dispersed about $11,000,000 to young scientists in fields adjacent to mine

01:00:26I confronted him about it that night in our module

01:00:28He did not deny it

01:00:30Damien

01:00:31I funded your students

01:00:34I do not have students

01:00:36You will

01:00:38I funded the field

01:00:39I funded the field you were going to lead

01:00:44Damien

01:00:45He took my hand

01:00:46I have been preparing the ground, Sloan

01:00:48For a long time

01:00:49I built the foundation network the same way I built the apartment and the wall

01:00:53Not for you to notice

01:00:54For you to land in when you are ready

01:00:56When you announce your own laboratory next year and you will

01:00:58Every promising postdoc in the discipline will already have a personal reason to apply to you

01:01:02I did not stack the dare because I did not trust you to win without it

01:01:05I stacked it because I would rather you not have to fight for what should have been handed to you

01:01:09seven years ago

01:01:09Damien

01:01:10Yes

01:01:11There is no part of my life

01:01:13You have not been holding up from underneath

01:01:15There is no part of you, Sloan

01:01:17I am not willing to hold up from underneath

01:01:19In the fourth week, he showed me Reagan's file

01:01:21He had not brought it up since we landed

01:01:23He brought it up only because

01:01:25That morning, an emergency message had come through the satellite system

01:01:29A tabloid in New York had published a photograph of me being carried

01:01:33By Damien

01:01:33Off the medevac in February

01:01:35The photograph had been bought from a freelancer who had snuck onto the helipad

01:01:39The caption beneath the photo was a quote attributed

01:01:42Anonymously

01:01:43To a close friend of Reagan Snow

01:01:45Suggesting that I had been romantically pursuing Damien Crane

01:01:48During my seven-year relationship with Preston

01:01:50Damien read it to me at breakfast

01:01:52He did not raise his voice

01:01:54He set down the satellite tablet

01:01:55He picked up his coffee

01:01:57He took a slow sip

01:02:00Sklone

01:02:02Damien

01:02:02I am withdrawing my offer to leave her alone

01:02:05Damien

01:02:06She violated the no contact clause when she planted the quote

01:02:09That is now her problem, not mine

01:02:10The deferred prosecution agreement is forfeit

01:02:13She will be charged with the underlying fraud on Monday

01:02:15The federal investigation into her undergraduate funding will be opened on Tuesday

01:02:19I would like to do one additional thing

01:02:21He looked at me

01:02:22I would like to release the recording

01:02:24The full one

01:02:25The recording Reagan's midnight phone call from the Wrangell command tent had been used in the ethics hearing

01:02:30And in Preston's case

01:02:31But the full audio had never been made public

01:02:33The two-minute clip the press had covered had only contained the part about the journal

01:02:37The remaining 90 seconds contained the part where she had called me stupid for thinking money could buy a man

01:02:42The part where she had described

01:02:44In detail

01:02:45The strategy of waiting for me to humiliate myself into walking away

01:02:49The part where she had laughed

01:02:51Release it

01:02:52He did not blink

01:02:53All of it?

01:02:55All of it

01:02:55To the same outlet that ran the tabloid quote?

01:02:58To the same outlet

01:02:59He took out his satellite phone

01:03:01He made one call

01:03:02The call lasted four minutes

01:03:04By dinner

01:03:05The recording was up

01:03:06By midnight

01:03:07It had been picked up by every major outlet that had covered the original audit

01:03:11By the next morning

01:03:12The tabloid that had run the quote had retracted it

01:03:15By the end of the week

01:03:16The publishing house that had originally pulled Reagan's book deal

01:03:19Had publicly announced that it had also voided her advance contract for any future work

01:03:23Reagan's snow did not surface in public again

01:03:25Damien did not say anything about it

01:03:28He did not have to

01:03:29He had told me

01:03:30Weeks ago

01:03:31That there had never been a moment in our entire acquaintance

01:03:34When I was unprotected

01:03:35I was beginning

01:03:36Finally

01:03:36To understand exactly what that had meant

01:03:39I drilled Whitfield 1 the same day the recording went live

01:03:42We had not planned the timing

01:03:44The team had simply gotten to the site in the rotation

01:03:46And the weather had cooperated

01:03:48And Briggs had said

01:03:49That morning

01:03:50Today is your day

01:03:51Damien insisted on coming

01:03:53He had not pressed to be on any other field site with me

01:03:56He had stayed within his cover

01:03:57He had let me work without his shadow on my shoulder

01:04:00On the morning of Whitfield 1

01:04:01He did not ask permission

01:04:03He came

01:04:04He carried the equipment up the ridge himself

01:04:06Even though Briggs had two team members ready to do it

01:04:09He stood 10 feet away while I drilled

01:04:11He did not speak

01:04:12I drilled

01:04:13I loved the call

01:04:14I labeled it

01:04:15I stood up

01:04:15I turned to look at him

01:04:17He was watching me the way he had watched me come off the medevac at Teterboro a year before

01:04:21Not breathing

01:04:22Not blinking

01:04:23Counting

01:04:24With his thumb pressed unconsciously to the inside of his own wrist

01:04:27Where he had once pressed it to mine

01:04:29Damien

01:04:30Damien

01:04:32I am alright

01:04:33I know

01:04:36This is the spot

01:04:38I know

01:04:40This is where I called you

01:04:41This is where you called me

01:04:42He took a step closer

01:04:44He looked down at the snow

01:04:45He looked at the small rise where the equipment crate had been

01:04:47He looked at the lee of the outcrop where the walls had moved through

01:04:50Then he knelt

01:04:51He did not cry

01:04:52He pressed his palm flat to the snow

01:04:54The way a person might press a palm to a grave

01:04:56He stayed there for a long moment

01:04:57When he stood

01:04:58His glove was wet through

01:04:59He took my hand

01:05:01I would like to ask you something

01:05:02Ask

01:05:03I would like to ask you to come back to this spot every year with me

01:05:06On the anniversary for the rest of our lives

01:05:08Not because it was the worst day

01:05:10Because it was the day you called me

01:05:11That is the day I want to keep

01:05:13I closed my hand around his

01:05:15Every year

01:05:17Every year

01:05:18Alright

01:05:18Briggs

01:05:1920 feet away

01:05:20Very politely

01:05:21Turned his back to give us privacy

01:05:23We stayed at Whitfield 1 for 10 more minutes

01:05:25When we walked back down the ridge

01:05:27Damien did not let go of my hand

01:05:29Briggs did not say anything about that either

01:05:31We came home on May 28th

01:05:34He had said

01:05:34The night before we landed

01:05:36That he wanted to be the one who drove me back from the airport

01:05:39He had said it the way he said most things now calmly

01:05:41With the assumption that I would not object

01:05:43I did not object

01:05:45He drove me back from Teterboro at 6am

01:05:47On a Tuesday in late spring

01:05:49The apartment

01:05:50When we walked into the foyer

01:05:52Had changed

01:05:53The wall of course the one he had commissioned for me in March was the same

01:05:56The wall of Narcissus

01:05:57Opposite

01:05:58Was the same

01:05:59The piano was the same

01:06:00The library

01:06:01Three rooms down

01:06:02Was the same

01:06:03The bedroom had changed

01:06:05He had moved his things in

01:06:06His shoes by the door

01:06:07His charcoal pullover folded over the back of the reading chair

01:06:10His book on the bedside table on what had become

01:06:13In the last two months

01:06:14His side

01:06:15Sloan

01:06:17Damien

01:06:17I am not asking permission

01:06:19I am not asking you to

01:06:20He smiled

01:06:21It was the first full

01:06:23Unmanaged smile I had ever seen on his face

01:06:25He set my carry-on down by the door

01:06:27He picked me up

01:06:28I have had a small panic

01:06:30Every day

01:06:30For six weeks

01:06:31That you would change your mind on the plane

01:06:33I did not change my mind

01:06:34I know that now

01:06:36Damien

01:06:36Put me down

01:06:38No

01:06:38I can walk

01:06:40I know

01:06:41He carried me through the foyer

01:06:42Past the wall of cause

01:06:43Into the bedroom

01:06:44He set me

01:06:45Very carefully

01:06:46On the edge of the bed

01:06:47He knelt in front of me

01:06:49He took both my hands

01:06:50He looked up at me for a long moment

01:06:52I would like to ask you the question I told you I was going to ask you in the winter

01:06:56Damien

01:06:57It is May

01:06:58I cannot wait until the winter

01:06:59It's May

01:07:01Sloan

01:07:02He reached into his pocket

01:07:03He took out a small velvet box

01:07:05He did not place it on the piano this time

01:07:07He opened it

01:07:08Inside

01:07:09On a small bed of pale cream silk

01:07:11Was a ring

01:07:12It was not the kind of ring I would have expected

01:07:14Not from him

01:07:15Not from a man who could have walked into any jeweler in Manhattan

01:07:18And chosen any stone in the city

01:07:20It was a small

01:07:21Deliberate band of brushed gold

01:07:23Set into it

01:07:24Almost flush

01:07:25Was a single pale yellow sapphire

01:07:27The color of winter narcissus

01:07:29I knew the stone

01:07:30I knew the stone

01:07:31Because it had been in my mother's locket

01:07:33The locket she had worn the day she died

01:07:35The locket my father had been keeping in a velvet bag in a drawer in his desk for 18 years

01:07:40Damien

01:07:41I asked your father six months ago

01:07:44Damien

01:07:45He gave it to me with both hands

01:07:48Damien

01:07:50I will say it twice if I have to

01:07:54Say it

01:07:57I have loved you for a very long time

01:07:59I built a life with one room in it

01:08:01The room had no furniture and no light

01:08:03And one chair facing the door

01:08:05I sat in the chair year after year

01:08:07I sat in it through three engagements I refused

01:08:09I sat in it through your seven years with another man

01:08:12I sat in it through the night your mother died

01:08:14And the night you graduated

01:08:15And the night I painted the wall

01:08:18I sat in it on the afternoon you called me from a mountain in Alaska

01:08:21I have not been in that room since the day I picked you up off the floor of that tent

01:08:25The room is gone now Sloane

01:08:27The whole house is yours

01:08:30Marry me

01:08:30I had thought

01:08:31For months

01:08:32That when this moment came

01:08:34I would say something simple

01:08:35I had thought I would say yes

01:08:37I had thought I would say yes

01:08:38Because the word was small and complete

01:08:40And did not need any of the surrounding architecture

01:08:42Instead I sat on the edge of his bed

01:08:44In his apartment

01:08:45In front of the wall of cause he had commissioned for me

01:08:48Holding my mother's yellow sapphire on its brushed gold band

01:08:51And I started to cry

01:08:52I had not cried since the helicopter

01:08:54I cried now

01:08:56He did not move

01:08:57He did not say a word

01:08:58He let me cry

01:08:59After a long time

01:09:00I said it

01:09:03Yes

01:09:03He closed his eyes once he opened them

01:09:05Say it again

01:09:07Yes

01:09:09Again

01:09:11Yes Damien

01:09:12Yes

01:09:13He slid the ring onto my fourth finger

01:09:15Above the signet he had given me in the hospital

01:09:18The brushed gold was warm

01:09:19The yellow sapphire caught the morning light coming in off the east river

01:09:22He stayed kneeling

01:09:23He pressed his forehead to my knees

01:09:25I bent forward

01:09:26I rested my forehead against the crown of his head

01:09:29We stayed like that

01:09:30In the bedroom in his apartment

01:09:31For a long time

01:09:33After a while

01:09:34He stood up

01:09:34He picked me up off the edge of the bed

01:09:36He did not

01:09:37This time

01:09:38Set me down anywhere

01:09:39He carried me to the south windows

01:09:41He stood there

01:09:42Holding me

01:09:43Looking out at the city

01:09:44Mrs. Crane

01:09:47Damien

01:09:48I am rehearsing

01:09:49Rehearse it once more

01:09:52Mrs. Crane

01:09:53Yes Damien

01:09:55He smiled into my hair

01:09:56He did not put me down for the rest of the morning

01:09:59We were married in November

01:10:00He gave me

01:10:01In the months between

01:10:02The kind of wedding that a man who has been planning a wedding in his head

01:10:06For a long time gives a woman who has been allowing herself to imagine one for 10 weeks

01:10:10Which is to say

01:10:11A small wedding

01:10:12I had thought he would want a large one

01:10:14He could have filled every cathedral in Manhattan

01:10:16He did not

01:10:17He picked the lake house

01:10:18He picked a Saturday in late November

01:10:20When the first snow was due

01:10:22He picked the porch

01:10:23He invited my father

01:10:24Three of his cousins

01:10:25Garcia

01:10:26Briggs

01:10:27Finn

01:10:27My two graduate cohort co-investigators

01:10:30The cold weather medic

01:10:31The surgeon who had patched my lung

01:10:33And the National Science Foundation chair

01:10:35That was the entire guest list

01:10:37His mother was not invited

01:10:38She wrote him a letter the week before the wedding

01:10:40He returned it unopened

01:10:42He did not tell me he had returned it

01:10:44Garcia mentioned it

01:10:45In passing

01:10:46On the morning of the wedding

01:10:47The way she mentioned most logistical details

01:10:50I asked him about it that afternoon

01:10:51In the bedroom

01:10:52While I was getting dressed

01:10:54He buttoned his cuff

01:10:55He did not look up

01:10:56Damien

01:10:57She asked

01:10:58Two months ago

01:10:59If she could attend

01:11:01And

01:11:03I told her she would be welcome

01:11:04The day she apologized to you

01:11:06She did not

01:11:07She did not

01:11:09Damien

01:11:12Sloan

01:11:13She is your mother

01:11:14She had thirty years to be my mother

01:11:16She used that time to try to take you from me

01:11:18I am not paying her interest on a debt

01:11:20She did not service

01:11:21He buttoned the second cuff

01:11:22When she is ready to apologize to you

01:11:24She may come to dinner

01:11:26Until then she may live with what she chose

01:11:28I crossed the room

01:11:29I straightened his tie

01:11:30Slowly

01:11:31With both hands

01:11:32Damien

01:11:33Hmm

01:11:33I love you

01:11:35He caught my hands at his collar

01:11:37He kissed both wrists

01:11:38One after the other

01:11:39Mrs. Crane

01:11:40Not yet

01:11:41In forty-three minutes

01:11:42Forty-three

01:11:43I have been counting since six a.m.

01:11:45He kissed me on the forehead

01:11:46He turned me toward the door

01:11:48Your father is waiting downstairs

01:11:50Alright

01:11:50Sklonen

01:11:51Hmm

01:11:51Walk slowly

01:11:53Why

01:11:53Because the next time you walk through a door toward me

01:11:55You are mine

01:11:56I would like to remember every second of it

01:11:58He cried at the ceremony

01:11:59I had not expected him to

01:12:00I had not thought it possible

01:12:02He had been

01:12:03For the entirety of the time I had known him

01:12:05A man who had not visibly cried at a funeral

01:12:08A wedding

01:12:09A court ruling

01:12:10Or a press conference

01:12:11He had stood at his father's gravesite

01:12:13And not shed a tear

01:12:14He cried on the porch of the lake house on a Saturday in November

01:12:17When he saw me come around the corner of the house in my mother's dress

01:12:20My father saw it first

01:12:22He squeezed my elbow

01:12:23Look at him

01:12:25I looked

01:12:25Damien was standing at the end of the porch in front of the open front door

01:12:29The brass lock

01:12:30The lock that had held since the house was built was just behind him

01:12:33His hands were clasped in front of him

01:12:35His eyes were closed

01:12:37Tears were moving

01:12:38Slowly

01:12:38Down his cheeks

01:12:39He did not wipe them

01:12:41He opened his eyes when I was three steps away

01:12:43He smiled

01:12:44It was the smile of a man who had been waiting a long time to use it

01:12:47My father set my hand into his

01:12:51Damien

01:12:52Sir

01:12:52She is yours

01:12:54Sir

01:12:55She always was

01:12:56Dad smiled

01:12:58He took his seat in the front row

01:12:59The officiant

01:13:00A friend of the family

01:13:01Who had married my parents in the same spot long ago said a few words

01:13:05He spoke about commitment

01:13:06He spoke about the longevity of love that has been quietly held

01:13:09He spoke, briefly, about my mother

01:13:12Who had taught him to make soda bread when he was a young man

01:13:15Then he said

01:13:16Damien

01:13:17Your vows

01:13:18Damien took both my hands

01:13:19Sloan Whitfield

01:13:21Damien Crane

01:13:22I have loved you for a very long time

01:13:23I kept a small notebook

01:13:25The notebook had in it everything I learned about you that nobody else knew

01:13:28The way you held your fork

01:13:29The way you closed a door so it did not click

01:13:31The way you ate the corners of a sandwich first

01:13:33The way you bit your thumb before you took an exam

01:13:36I do not need the notebook anymore

01:13:37The porch was very quiet

01:13:39He went on

01:13:39I am keeping it for our daughter

01:13:41I vow to love you with the precision and the patience of a man who has practiced

01:13:45I vow to defend you the way I have always defended you

01:13:48Which is publicly, immediately and without negotiation

01:13:50I vow to bring you tea every morning and to play the piano for you every night

01:13:53I vow to come home for dinner

01:13:55Every night

01:13:56For the rest of my life

01:13:57I vow to never under any circumstances let you walk out of a room without telling you first that I

01:14:01love you

01:14:02That is what I have for you Sloan

01:14:03The rest is yours to ask for

01:14:05I said my vows

01:14:06I do not remember them

01:14:07I remember only that when the officiant said you may kiss the bride

01:14:10Damien did not move quickly

01:14:12He moved very slowly

01:14:13He cupped my face the way he had cupped it the day he came up off the floor of the

01:14:17tent in Ringlaw

01:14:18He kissed me

01:14:19The first snow began

01:14:20On cue

01:14:21Behind him

01:14:22We did not have a reception

01:14:24We had dinner

01:14:25Twelve of us

01:14:26Around a long wooden table in the dining room of the lake house

01:14:29With two of my cousins and my father and Garcia and Briggs and Finn and the medic and the surgeon

01:14:34and the National Science Foundation chair

01:14:35Who had brought his wife

01:14:37The food was simple

01:14:38The wine was old

01:14:39The conversation moved

01:14:41The way conversations at lake houses move

01:14:43In slow loops that did not need anywhere to go

01:14:45After dinner, Damien played the piano

01:14:48He played the eight notes my mother used to hum

01:14:50He played the second eight notes he had written for me alone in his apartment

01:14:53While I had been in Alaska drilling Whitfield 1

01:14:56He played a third set of eight notes I had never heard

01:14:59He stopped after the third set

01:15:01He turned to me

01:15:02That one I wrote this morning

01:15:04When this morning?

01:15:054am

01:15:07Damien

01:15:07I will write you a new eight notes every morning of our marriage

01:15:12Damien

01:15:14I have already started counting

01:15:15Around midnight, the guests went to bed in the guest rooms upstairs

01:15:18Damien took my hand

01:15:20He led me out the front door, onto the porch

01:15:22And down the gravel drive to the boathouse at the edge of the lake

01:15:25The boathouse was lit with a single lamp

01:15:27He had had it cleaned

01:15:29He had had a single chair placed inside it

01:15:31By the window facing the water

01:15:32He had hung and I almost laughed when I saw it

01:15:35Every single one of the thousand cranes from the apartment library

01:15:38They hung from the ceiling of the boathouse in soft drifts of pale yellow

01:15:42And the lamp lit them from below

01:15:44He stood with me in the doorway

01:15:46Sloan

01:15:47Damien

01:15:48This is the last thing

01:15:49The last thing

01:15:50Every other thing I have done over all this time I have done quietly

01:15:52I have folded a rain

01:15:53I have painted a wall

01:15:54I have learned a piece of music

01:15:55I have bought a building

01:15:56I have built a foundation network

01:15:58I have refused a marriage

01:15:59I did all of it quietly because you were not yet mine

01:16:01This is the last thing I do quietly

01:16:03He turned me to face him

01:16:04From tomorrow I do everything loudly

01:16:06I bring you flowers in front of every restaurant

01:16:08I hold your hand at every board meeting

01:16:09I introduce you at every event in this city as my wife for the rest of my life

01:16:13Tell me you understand

01:16:15I understand

01:16:17Sloan

01:16:19Welcome home

01:16:19He cupped my face in both hands

01:16:21He kissed me slowly

01:16:23The way he had kissed me on the porch

01:16:25And behind him

01:16:26A thousand cranes turned slowly in the draft

01:16:28I had spent seven years thinking my life was a story about being seen by the wrong man

01:16:33It had been

01:16:34All along

01:16:34A story about being held up from underneath by the right one

01:16:37The right one was holding me

01:16:39Now

01:16:39In a boathouse at the edge of a lake at midnight in November

01:16:42In front of one thousand paper wishes he had folded for me before he was thirty years old

01:16:47The wish I had folded into the last crane

01:16:49Months ago

01:16:50Had been that I had not taken so long to see him

01:16:52The wish I made now

01:16:54Standing in the doorway

01:16:55Was that I would have a lifetime war

01:16:57The end

01:16:57The wish I had這 Inn

Abandoned on a Snow Mountain, I Became a Tycoon’s Obsession - Full Episode #ADB

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