Chapter 23: June's Birthday

I drove the green truck into the Maple Court lot on Saturday at noon, and it ran the whole way.

Emmett sat in the passenger seat with a bakery box on his knees.

He had not once told me how to drive it.

"Parking is going to be a problem," he said.

I looked through the windshield.

Cars lined both sides of the drive. Forty people stood on the lawn in their weekend clothes, holding balloons.

The woman I had trained held a sign that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUNE in glitter.

"They came," I said.

"The rest are in the lobby," Emmett said. "The director has asked them to stop."

Heidi leaned out of the lobby doors in her scrubs.

"There's sixty-one," she said. "And one man with a trombone."

"Why a trombone?"

"He says it's June's favorite."

The day room had been cleared of armchairs, and a long table stood at the window with a three-layer cake.

June sat at the head of it, in her lemon cardigan with her braid over her shoulder.

She looked around at the faces.

She did not know any of them. I saw it on her, and I saw her decide to be gracious anyway.

"What a lot of people," she said to the nurse. "Is it a funeral?"

"It's your birthday, Mrs. Hallam."

"Oh. Is it? How old am I?"

"Sixty-two," I said, from the door.

She turned her head.

"Tessie," she said. "There you are. I was about to start without you."