Chapter 31: Washing Dishes

"Including that she knew," I repeated.

"She called me before she posted it," Emerson said. "First time in five months. She read it to me. She asked if it was enough."

"What did you tell her?"

"That it wasn't up to me." He was quiet a moment. "The boy in Ohio is four. If he has it, they'll know by tonight. Before anything happens to him."

"Then it's working," I said.

"She asked me to ask you. About Sunday."

I looked at Fergus.

Fergus looked back at me for a long moment.

Then he nodded once.

"Tell her the diner," I said. "The Sunday after the center opens. Ten in the morning. Supervised. Fergus pours."

The boy in Ohio had it.

They knew by dinner.

His mother put him on a gram plan from a sheet I emailed her that night, and he never got sick at all.

The center opened on the third Wednesday in March.

The front door was still Ciara's glass, with her letters on it.

Behind it, the old bakery had become two exam rooms, a lab bench and a teaching kitchen with six stoves and six scales.

Upstairs there was a playroom with a fish tank bigger than Ciara.

She had negotiated for it personally.

The shoes were on a long shelf in the hall, tags and all.

At ten that morning a white truck pulled up at the curb.

KENLEY NUTRITION, on the side, and under it, smaller, MEDICAL FOODS.

Emerson climbed down from the passenger seat.

He was exactly on time.

"First batch," he said. "Off the line last night. Tested twice. Your rules on every label."

He handed me a can.

The label was plain white and blue.

My protein numbers. My instructions, in plain words. A phone number for the Kitchen.

Not the word Reset anywhere.

"Free for every family in the program," he said. "That's in the contract. Your placemat's framed in my office, by the way. The lawyers hate it."

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