Chapter 19: The Number

The yard stayed silent.

Every face had turned to me.

I did not say a word, because Edith's hand was still on my wrist.

She let go of it slowly.

"Thank you, Bridget," Edith said. "That was a fine speech. You always did know how to hold a room."

Bridget smiled, a little uncertain.

"Grandma, I only..."

"I have not finished." Edith did not raise her voice. "Rhett. You may speak now."

Rhett came down the porch steps.

He left the cane on the top step, and I saw him do it.

He walked out onto the grass, past the lemonade table and the church ladies, and stopped ten feet from his sister.

"Ask her how she knew," he said, to the yard. "That's a fair question. Here's another one. Bridget, where is my phone?"

"Rhett, don't."

"The one I gave you at the airport, before the deployment. You told me you lost it in a move."

"I did lose it."

"Then you won't mind if I call it."

He took a new phone out of his jacket pocket.

He held it up so that everyone could see his thumb tap each number, one at a time.

I knew those numbers.

I knew them better than I knew my own birthday.

He put the phone to his ear, and then, so the whole yard could hear, he put it on speaker.

It rang once.

It rang twice.

From the red leather bag hanging off Bridget's shoulder came a thin, tinny tune, an old ringtone, a few bars of a marching song.

Nobody laughed.

Nobody moved.

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