When Love Runs Dry novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: Friday

Opal stood on the porch in her slippers and pulled the orange notice off her door.

She read it twice.

Then she folded it into a neat square and put it in her cardigan pocket with the receipt.

"Friday the thirteenth," she said. "She thinks she's funny."

"Gran, we can pay the difference. I'll pay it."

"You will not."

"It's eighty-seven dollars."

"It's eighty-seven dollars this quarter. Then it's every quarter."

"Then it's every old woman on this street who doesn't have a granddaughter."

She looked down Church Street at the other doors. Six more orange squares.

"No."

"Then what do we do?"

"We set out chairs."

By Friday morning Church Street looked like a parade route.

People brought lawn chairs and thermoses and set them up along the sidewalk.

The lady from the post office brought a folding table with doughnuts.

Mae was there, home from school with what Nolan called "a sudden cold," wearing her purple raincoat and holding a sign she'd made herself.

WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT AND ALSO A SCIENCE PROJECT.

At ten o'clock a white contractor's van turned onto the street.

Behind it came the white Range Rover.

Behind that came a TV van from Hartford, and a town police cruiser bringing up the rear.

Delaney stepped out in her cream coat and sunglasses.

A cameraman fell in beside her. She'd brought her own crew.

"Good morning, Alder Falls!" she said brightly.

Nobody answered.

The contractor got out with a long steel key over his shoulder.

He was the same man who couldn't find the intake. He wanted to be somewhere else.

"14 Church Street," Delaney said, reading from her phone. "Brainard. Let's start there."

The curb box was a small round iron lid in the grass strip in front of Opal's gate.

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