Chapter 24: The Wet Side

On the next ninth of June the pier was dry.

We came at nine, with the blue thermos and two cups, and the light was going gold over the water.

I had finished my first year in Seattle on the dean's list, with a limp, and Cal had cried at that too.

Sadie had passed her EMT exam on the second try and framed the certificate over the stove.

We'd flown home that morning, and my mother had met us at the little airport with a sign.

It said WELCOME HOME, WYATT AND SADIE, and under it, smaller, THE YARD IS STILL MINE.

"You didn't have to make a sign," Sadie said.

"I did. Get in the truck."

Now we walked down the boards together.

At the end of the pier a new bronze plaque was bolted to the post by the ladder.

The town had paid for it with a bake sale.

I stopped and read it, as I'd read it a dozen times in the spring when she sent me pictures.

It said: At this ladder, on June 9th, a girl of eleven pulled a boy of eleven out of the lake. Sadie Kincaid and Wyatt Pruitt. Both were brave.

"They were going to leave out my part," I said.

"I made them put both." She tucked her arm through mine.

"I wasn't brave until I was twenty-two."

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