Howard Coleman only felt his entire heart and lungs aching uncontrollably with every breath he took. His hand, gripping the chopsticks, suddenly shook, causing a glass beside him to topple onto the floor with a clear ringing sound.
At the quiet dinner table, everyone turned to look at Howard Coleman.
It was only then that Madeleine realized she might have steered the conversation into too sorrowful a territory. A hopeful thought sprouted at the bottom of her heart—could it be that Howard's intense reaction was because of all the suffering she endured in Oceania?
But the flicker of hope that ignited in Madeleine's heart hadn't even taken shape when Howard collected himself, swallowed twice, and calmly offered a simple explanation, "I accidentally bumped it."
Everyone remained silent, except for Rusell Henris, who pressed the call bell on the table, summoning a waiter to replace Howard's glass with a new one.
