Don, I Left as You Wished novel · Chapter 29 of 32

Chapter 29: Lane Four Stays

The envelope said LANE FOUR SWIM PROGRAM in typed capitals.

My hands were wet. I got salt water on the seal.

"Open it," my mother said. "I'm fifty. I don't have all day."

Inside was one sheet of heavy paper.

I read it, and read it again, and couldn't make it say anything.

Santo read it over my shoulder.

"Read it out," Joanie said, dragging her kayak up the stones behind us. "Out loud. Use your words."

"The bid from Torrisi Construction is withdrawn," I said, "pending a criminal investigation."

"Withdrawn," Joanie said. "Withdrawn."

"The city accepts the bid of the Lane Four Swim Program," I said, "for a ten-year lease of the Red Hook bathhouse, subject to proof of funds for repairs by the end of the month."

I looked up at the city man.

"Since when?"

He wiped his forehead.

"Some papers came in to the commissioner's office on Friday, about my brother-in-law's company and a boat."

"A thirty-two-foot boat," I said.

"I was told to bring it to the finish." He looked over at the police car again. "I was told to bring it either way."

"Either way?"

"There were two envelopes," he said, and walked away very fast up the beach.

"How much for the repairs?" my mother said.

I found the number at the bottom of the page.

Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

The beach was still loud all around us, the kids running, the cameras, my name.

I felt the morning go out from under me.

Then Joanie took her phone out of the waterproof bag around her neck and turned the screen toward me.

The Swim Across page.

Last week, after the feast, it had said forty thousand.

After the news said I was dead, it had gone up every hour.

Strangers gave from Ohio and Texas, and a school in Ireland.

In the last ten minutes, somebody had posted a woman walking out of the harbor in Red Hook.

Now the number was climbing so fast it blurred.

Six hundred and eleven thousand dollars.

"Twenty-three thousand people," Joanie said. "Roz. Twenty-three thousand people."

I sat down on the stones.

Santo crouched beside me.

"Can I pledge?" he said.

"No."

"One dollar."

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