Chapter 23: On the Factory Floor

On Saturday the seven lathes stood silent under strings of white lights.

Three hundred folding chairs ran in rows down the factory floor.

They were full, and people stood along the walls.

The old machinists sat in the front, shaved and pressed.

The board sat behind them, the woman in pearls in a hat.

Four hundred employees from the tower had come on a rented fleet of buses, and some of them had brought their children.

Ruby stood at the head of the aisle in a green dress with her red curls pinned up.

She was crying already.

"It's not time yet," I whispered.

"It's always time," Ruby said, and blew her nose.

The doors at the back opened.

My mother took my arm.

She wore the pale blue cardigan over a cream dress, and she walked slowly, with her chin up.

"Your father would be insufferable today," she said.

"Insufferable."

"He'd have a speech. He'd have written it on the back of a work order."

I laughed, and the music started.

It was one cellist, in the corner, who had agreed to play for a plate of Joan Brennan's pot roast.

We walked down the aisle between the lathes.

People turned and smiled as I passed.

I saw faces I knew from the lobby, women who had held their phones up that Monday morning and now held tissues.

I saw the sergeant in the third row in his dress uniform.

I saw Lydia standing alone in the very last row, in a dark coat, with her hands folded.

I had sent her no invitation.

She had come anyway.

I looked at her for the length of one step, and I nodded.

She dropped her head.

That was all either of us had to give.

At the end of the aisle, under the repainted sign, Gavin stood waiting.

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