Chapter 11: Five Octobers

Alister came to my mother's back door on Tuesday morning at ten to seven, in his work jacket, with his hard hat in his hand.

I had slept two hours.

I still had his chief's jacket on over my nightgown. Neither of us mentioned it.

"I've got a crew on Route Seven in twenty minutes," he said. "I'm going to say one thing and then go."

"Say it."

"Read the others first. Five through nine. Leave year eight for last."

He looked at the shoebox on the table behind me.

"Read year eight when you can stand it. Not before."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it's the one I don't want you reading angry," he said.

"Alister, what's in it?"

"A fact," he said. "I'll be across the street."

He went down the steps, and I watched his truck back out.

I spent the whole of that Tuesday at my mother's kitchen table.

The sixth letter was in my hand before I realized I'd finished the fifth.

The fifth was short.

The power company made me a foreman and gave me a truck with my name on the door.

Dad cried and said it was the heater.

I told the crew about you once, at a campfire.

They asked what you were like. I said you would count their mistakes.

The sixth was longer, in handwriting that slanted.

Your mother fell in her kitchen on Monday.

I was on the squad that went. She has a broken wrist and a cane, and your aunt took her home.

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