Chapter 13: The Back of the Card

Stuart's POV

The notebook was due to Bryce by Friday, and I was on card two hundred and six.

I sat in the studio above the print shop with a lamp, a ballpoint, and a shoebox of yellow cards.

Bryce had told me to copy the fronts only, with the dates, and to press hard so the ink looked old.

I pressed hard.

Every card was a small clean problem in her small clean hand.

Every seven had a bar through the stem, and I copied the bars, because Sydney had told me about the bars.

Two nights ago I had written my own card, on one of her blank stocks.

I wrote the problem, and the answer, and crossed the answer out, and under it I wrote: I can't solve it.

Then I slid it behind the invitation in Bryce's envelope, where he would not look.

Now she had it, and I did not know if she had opened it.

I had read every front in this room, at night, and never once for her.

Around eleven, my pen slipped and I dropped a card on the floor.

It landed face down, and I saw that the back was not blank.

There was a line of pencil on it.

I had never turned one over.

In fourteen years, it had not crossed my mind that the other side might be used.

I picked it up.

It was from the autumn of our sixth year, and the front said: 12 x 12 = ?

The back said, in her pencil: I went to the high school today and watched the seniors take the statistics exam. Ask me how it felt.

I sat very still.

I turned over the next card in the box.

Dentist at 3. I told you at breakfast. You said "mm-hm."

The next one.

Your mother called twice. I told her you were working. You were not working, you were looking at the wall.

The next.

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