Chapter 8: Front Street Notices

Behind me, a cane tapped once on the kitchen tile.

I didn't turn around. I knew whose it was.

Blaine and Corrie hadn't heard it. They hadn't heard me either.

I walked into the pantry.

"Excuse me," I said. "I need the ice."

They came apart so fast Corrie knocked a can of tomatoes off the shelf.

It rolled across the floor and stopped against my sneaker.

I stepped over it, opened the chest freezer, and filled Earl's silver bucket with the scoop, one scoop at a time.

Nobody said anything.

Corrie had her hand over the ring on her chain. Blaine's mouth was shiny.

"Ree," he said. "It's not..."

"It's not my business," I said. "I'm married."

I closed the freezer lid.

Then I walked out past Earl, who stood in the kitchen doorway on his cane.

His pale blue eyes had gone very flat and very old.

He'd seen all of it.

He took the bucket from me without a word and carried it back to the table himself.

He didn't speak to Blaine again that night.

Reuben drove us home along the river with the windows down.

I told him in the truck, flat.

He just said, "How long?"

"Long enough to be good at it."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm furious." I looked out the window at the black water. "And it's the best I've felt since Friday."

At seven the next morning, Connie came in without knocking, carrying two coffees, a bag of doughnuts, and her laptop.

"So. What are we doing with our lives?"

"A newsletter," I said.

"About what?"

"About Halbrook. Births. Deaths. Weddings. The things the Courier won't print because somebody plays golf with somebody."

Connie put her coffee down very slowly.

"Front Street Notices," she said.

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