Chapter 12: The Left Hand

I enlarged the photo with two fingers until the screen went grainy.

The desk lamp lit the back of Brooke's head.

The pen was in her left hand, her wrist curled over the top of the card.

She wrote left-handed. I had known that for six years.

Everyone else was by the couch, holding cards they'd already written.

Brooke had given every one of them a pen and a card. Then she had walked to the desk alone.

"Ingrid," I said.

"I see it."

"This was before the box. She hadn't dropped hers in yet."

"No." Ingrid looked at the screen. "She was the last one in. You told the dock that."

I went down the stairs two at a time and out into the cold bright morning.

I opened the passenger door of my truck.

The glove compartment was full of napkins and a tire gauge. I dug under them.

Brooke had given me a birthday card last month, and I had left it in the glove box.

It was a plain white card. Inside, in black marker, she had written: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JO. LOVE B.

Every letter was a block capital, tilted backward, dragged to the right by a left hand pulling the pen.

I stood in the gravel with it.

The third card in the veil box had been written in block capitals.

I had said that to her mother on the lawn. Anyone could have written it, I'd said.

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