The Eight Year Ledger novel · Chapter 7 of 32

Chapter 7: Fun Run

The fun run was Saturday morning at Alum Creek Park.

I'd organized it in August.

I'd ordered the T-shirts, booked the porta-potties, and talked a bakery client into donating three hundred muffins.

I wasn't going to stay home from it because of a heart emoji.

Gabe didn't want to go.

"Everybody's going to look at us," he said at breakfast.

"Probably."

"Why are we going, then?"

"Because you raised two hundred and ten dollars in pledges," I said. "From Grandma, both neighbors and the mailman. You're running it."

He chewed his cereal and considered the mailman.

"He gave me ten dollars," he said. "He'd be mad."

"He would be furious."

So we went.

The park was full of parents in fleece and kids in bright orange shirts that said BROOKSIDE RUNS FOR CINCINNATI.

The PTA president was at the registration table with a clipboard.

She saw me and her smile froze.

"Kristen! Oh. Hi. I wasn't sure you'd... Hi."

"Gabe Whitford," I said. "Third grade. He's prepaid."

She checked him off without looking at me.

Then somebody tugged hard on the back of my jacket.

I turned around.

A small girl with a bird's nest of blond hair and a missing front tooth was glaring up at me.

"You're Gabe's mom," she said.

"I am."

"I'm Dottie. I'm running with Gabe. My dad says I can't run with strangers, but you're not strangers, you're Gabe's mom."

"Is that okay with Gabe?"

Gabe shrugged, which in third grade means yes.

Beau came up behind her with two coffees and a paper bag.

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