Chapter 24: Hold Still

On Saturday morning the county sale was supposed to put a sign in my yard.

Instead Bridget put a spiral notebook on my kitchen table.

"Chef sent it home with me," she said. "She says it's retired."

It was the Line Diary, with a strip of masking tape over the old cover.

Chef had written on the tape in thick black marker: Void. Keep it.

I opened it to the last page.

Under Friday's date, in twenty-three different hands, every name in the cohort had written the same thing.

FOR.

Some of them were in pencil, and some in pen, and one in ketchup from the line.

Rafe's was at the bottom, in square capitals, and Bridget's was circled twice.

I closed the book and held it against my chest for a second.

"They did it before I got to school on Friday," Bridget said. "Nobody asked them."

"Thank you for carrying it."

"Don't thank me. I'm in the middle of crying." She wiped her face. "I'll go sit on your porch. Take your time."

She went out the front door and sat down on the new step with a thermos.

I pulled my mother's kitchen stool into the middle of the floor, under the window where the light was best.

It had a worn spot in the seat where she had sat to watch me stir.

Rafe was standing by the counter with a dish towel over his arm.

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