Chapter 31: Stay for One More Story

Delilah shook the paper out across the foot of my hospital bed.

It was a roll of blue butcher paper from the truck stop kitchen, and the letters had been cut out by hand and glued on.

WELCOME HOME, NORA.

That was all it said.

My stomach clenched before I could stop it.

I looked at Delilah.

She stood very straight with her chin up and her eyes wet.

"There's one name on it," she said. "Hers. Nobody else's, nobody's but hers."

"I see that."

"I swore I'd never make another banner. I sat up at the dish room table for three nights, and I kept thinking, what if she reads it wrong?"

"I read it fine."

"Do you want it?"

I took the corner and held it.

The glue was uneven, and one of the Os was the wrong size.

"Hang it on the porch," I said. "Not the clubhouse."

Delilah's shoulders shook as she bowed her head.

Dean took the paper from her gently and folded it on the bed rail.

"I'll hang it myself," he said. "Straight."

"It isn't going to be straight," I said. "Delilah cut the Os."

Delilah laughed, and then so did I, and the baby squirmed on my chest and made a small outraged sound.

It was the first time in a year the three of us had laughed in the same room.

Two Sundays later I had a dozen people at my kitchen table.

It was too many for the table, so Dean had carried the door out from the garage and laid it on sawhorses in the yard.

The porch banner flapped over the steps.

The wives had brought casseroles in foil, and Connie had brought a pie and a lecture.

"That gravy needs salt," she told Dean.

"It has salt."

"It has an opinion about salt. Give me the spoon."

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