15 Days Before I Left Him novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Rescue Day

By noon on Rescue Day, three hundred people stood on the lodge lawn with paper cups of cider.

The sky was clear and cold, and the lake behind the ceremony stage was bright and still.

A white cloth covered the new stone block at the water's edge.

Raylan and I stood at the back, beside the catering tent, and Bea held my elbow with both hands.

"If you throw up, do it on Judith," she muttered.

"I'm not going to throw up."

"Then I will."

Judith went up the stage steps in her pale gold coat, and the crowd went quiet for her.

Faye sat in a folding chair at the front in a thick blue coat, with Roscoe standing behind her.

He had not slept in two weeks, and it showed.

"Friends," Judith said into the microphone. "Seventeen years ago today, our town was given a miracle."

She told it well.

She told the sled and the ice and the brave little girl, and some of the women near the front were already crying.

"And today," Judith said, "we honor her with a permanent place on this shore."

She nodded at a workman.

He pulled the cloth, and the bronze plaque caught the sun.

Applause rolled across the lawn.

Faye stood up.

Judith's smile flickered, because that was not in the program.

"Mrs. Maddox, may I?" Faye said, and she took the microphone out of Judith's hand before Judith could answer.

Her voice shook, and then it steadied.

"I have worn a medal for seventeen years, and I didn't earn it."

The applause thinned and stopped.

"I did not pull Roscoe out of Hollis Pond. I was skating on the far side, and I froze."

She swallowed.

"A girl from my own class crawled out across the ice and dragged him to the bank."

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