Chapter 11: Fourteenth of August

"Where did you get that?" Soren asked.

His voice sounded wrong, thin and short of breath.

He had come back up one step.

He was looking at the dish by the door, where my keys lay in the light.

"The whistle?" I said.

"Yes."

"It's mine. I've had it since I was ten."

"Where did it come from?"

"Soren, what is this?"

"Please," he said. "Just tell me."

I had never heard him say please like that.

I picked up the keys with my right hand and held the whistle in my palm.

It was a plain little silver thing, dented near the mouthpiece, with a loop at one end.

My father had given it to me the night before I left for camp.

He had said, "Every girl should own something loud."

"I got it for summer camp," I said. "I was a scholarship kid. My dad had to take extra shifts to pay for the bus."

"Which camp?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Which camp, Linnea?"

"Tamarack. Up near Grand Rapids, on a lake. It closed years ago."

He closed his eyes.

I watched his hand on the railing, and the knuckles went white.

"What year?" he said.

"I was ten. So, twenty-three years ago."

"What month?"

"August."

"What day?" His voice cracked on it. "Do you remember what day?"

I stared at him.

Nobody remembered a day like that.

But I did.

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