Chapter 24: Opened

I opened it standing up in the front hall, in the dark, with my coat half off.

I did not wait or think about it, and I did not put it in a folder for later.

Jenna.

This is email one of one.

I wrote a hundred and thirteen emails asking other people to carry you.

Hardly one of them was opened.

This is the first I have written asking you to put something down.

Put it down.

Sunday, six o'clock, the back porch. Everyone is coming. Tressa is making the ham. Do not bring anything. Do not help.

Sit by the peonies. They will not be up until May. Sit anyway.

Love, Dad.

I read it twice, and the hall went blurry the second time.

Through the wall the click came, and the flat voice said, "Email one of one. Jenna. Opened."

I went down the hall and pushed open the back bedroom door.

He lay propped on two pillows with the tablet glowing on his chest and his one eyebrow already up.

"Half a minute," said the voice. "A record in this family."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

I had called him Gene for eight years, across kitchen tables and car seats and three years of pill organizers.

It turned out the other word was not as far away as I'd thought.

"Okay," I said. "Goodnight, Dad."

He lifted two fingers off the blanket.

His eyes were shut, but the corner of his mouth was working, and I didn't look away until it stopped.

On Sunday at six o'clock the back porch on Water Street held two tables pushed together and a ham.

It also held a dozen people who had been told not to help.

It was a cold April evening with a pink sky, and somebody had hung a string of lights from the rail.