Chapter 4: The Reading Hour

I slept two hours with the sticky note under my pillow.

Russell had written "these" and "don't let her find out," on the morning after the day I packed him soup.

He had not lost anything that March 9th.

He had handed my daughter's things to another woman.

At dawn I photographed the note, the empty chest and the pressed rectangle in the cedar, and I sent all three to myself twice.

Then I went back to the Moon Boat website, because "keep these safe" meant Kelsey held the notebook.

Moon Boat Studio held a free reading for grieving families on the first Tuesday of every month, and the website said walk-ins were welcome.

That was today.

I walked in at four o'clock with Tamara, and I sat in the last row of folding chairs.

There were fourteen people in the room.

A couple held hands in the front row, and the woman had a small stuffed rabbit in her lap.

Kelsey stood at the front under soft yellow lights with a book on a stand.

She saw me.

Her smile didn't move.

"We have a few new faces tonight," she said. "Everyone is welcome here. This is a safe room."

She opened the book.

It was a cloth-bound copy with a gold moon on the cover, and I knew from the first line that she had typed my notebook up and had it printed.

"Once there was a little boat that was afraid of the dark," Kelsey read.

Her voice was low and wet and perfect.

"And every night a girl called Moon came down to the water and told the boat, you are not alone."