Chapter 24: Gondola Seven Again

I said yes in the kitchen, with soap on my hands.

We were married in June on the dock at the lake cottage, with Birdie as the flower girl and the ring bearer, because she refused to share.

On Labor Day, a year to the week after the wheel fell, Bellwether Park opened a new one.

The park manager had called me himself.

"Miss Ostrander, we'd like you to cut the ribbon. We'd like the whole family there."

"I'm not sure I can stand it," I told him.

"Then we'll understand."

I stood in the parking lot at noon with my hand in Eli's and looked at it for a long time.

It was shorter than the old one.

It was painted white, with eighteen gondolas and a new steel axle.

At the gate hung a plaque with the date of last week's inspection.

Beside it stood a small brass sign.

It read: In honor of the forty-one people who walked away.

Under that, in smaller letters, someone had engraved: Because one woman said stop.

"Daddy, it's so tall," Birdie said.

She stood between us in her sneakers with her rabbit under her arm.

She had grown two inches since March.

"It's tall," Eli agreed.

"I'm scared of heights."

"I know, bug."