Free Matched by Ally Condie Page A

meal—and the separate trays for his guests.
    Grandfather lifts the cover from his plate and a heavenly, warm-fruit smell fills the room.
    “I thought you might like some pie,” Grandfather says, looking at me. He saw me, then, the other day, and I smile at him. At his signal, I lift the covers from the guest trays and we all gather around to eat. I serve everyone else first and then I pick up my piece of pie, flaky and warm and fruit-filled, and lift a forkful of the pastry to my mouth.
    I wonder if death will always taste this good.

    After all the guests have put down their forks and sighed in satiation, they talk with Grandfather, who leans back on a pile of thick white pillows. Bram eats on, stuffing himself with bites of everything. Grandfather smiles at him from across the room, amused.
    “It’s so good ,” Bram says around a mouthful of pie, and Grandfather laughs outright, a sound so warm and familiar that I smile, too, and put my hand down. I was about to touch Bram’s arm, tell him to quit feasting. But if Grandfather doesn’t mind, why should I?
    My father doesn’t eat anything. He puts a piece of pie on a round, white plate and then holds it in his hands, juice seeping out onto the china without him noticing. A little drop of it falls to the floor when he stands up to say good-bye to Grandfather’s guests after the viewing of the microcard. “Thank you for coming,” Papa says, and my mother bends down behind him to dab up the drop with her napkin. Someone else will move in after Grandfather leaves, and they won’t want to see the signs of another person’s Banquet. But that’s not why my mother did it, I realize. She wanted to spare my father any worry, any tiny bit at all.
    She takes the plate from my father as the door shuts behind the last guest. “Family time now,” she says, and my grandfather nods.
    “Thank goodness,” he says. “I have things to say to each of you.”
    So far, except for that one moment when he talked about what might come next, Grandfather has been behaving as usual. I’ve heard that some of the elderly have surprised everyone at the end, by choosing not to die with dignity. They cry and get upset and go crazy. All it does is make their families sad. There is nothing they can do about it. It’s the way things are.
    By some unspoken agreement, my mother and Bram and I go into the kitchen to let my father speak with Grandfather first. Bram, drowsy and stuffed with food, puts his head down on the table and falls asleep, snoring gently. My mother smoothes his curly brown hair with her hand, and I imagine that Bram dreams of more desserts, a plate heaped with them. My eyes feel heavy, too, but I don’t want to miss any part of Grandfather’s last day.
    After my father, Bram has a turn, and then my mother goes in to speak with Grandfather. The gift she has for him is a leaf from his favorite tree at the Arboretum. She picked it yesterday, so the edges have curled and become brown, but there is still green in the middle. She told me, while we waited and Bram slept, that Grandfather had asked if he could have his final celebration at the Arboretum, out in the blue-sky air. Of course, his request was denied.
    My turn at last. As I go into the room I notice that the windows are open. It is not a cool afternoon, and the breeze feels urgent and hot as it blows through the apartment. Soon, though, it will be night and things will be cooler.
    “I wanted to feel the air moving,” Grandfather says to me as I sit in the chair next to his bed.
    I hand him the gift. He thanks me and reads through it. “These are lovely words,” Grandfather says. “Fine sentiments.”
    I should feel pleased, but I can tell there is something more coming.
    “But none of these words are your own, Cassia,” Grandfather says gently.
    Tears sting my eyes and I look down at my hands. My hands that, like almost everyone else in our Society, cannot write, that merely know how to use the words of others.