Chapter 14: The Tablet

I had not answered Daisy's text about the Grange.

I had read it forty times since that night, and each time the line about reading the folder out together looked more like a dare.

Cal said I didn't have to answer until I knew what I would say on that stage.

Cal's father had a new way of talking by Thursday.

The speech therapist had left a tablet on the kitchen table with a grid of pictures on the screen and a keyboard under them.

He sat in front of it in his wheelchair with a quilt over his knees.

His good hand hovered above the glass, and he looked at me.

I had known Mr. Ockenden all my life, and he had never once looked at me like that.

"You don't have to do this for me," I said. "I know what the word was."

He shook his head hard.

His finger came down on a letter, and then another, with long stops between them.

Cal stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, and he did not help.

The therapist had said not to.

The tablet read the letters aloud in a flat voice.

"I. Saw. Girl."

"At the loading dock," I said.

He nodded.

"No. Face." The finger dragged. "Hood. Red."

"You couldn't see who it was," Cal said.

His father tapped, and the voice said, "Calving. Late. Dock light. Smoke."

I held very still.

"I. Ran. Barrel. Kicked." The finger shook. "Wind."

"You tried to put it out," I said.

He nodded, and tears started down the side of his face, and he did not wipe them away.

"I. Ran. Phone. No signal."

"Dad," Cal said.

"Hay. Gone. My. Fault."

"It was not your fault."

His father stabbed at the screen again.

"Sheriff. Said. Heater."

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