Chapter 5: The Notebook

Holt opened the notebook under the lamp.

The first page was dated twenty-one months ago, in neat block capitals.

5:04 a.m. Behind the barn. Lefty. Seven-iron, 162 yards, over the marsh fence. Carried it.

5:09 a.m. Same. Cried on the fourth ball. Did not stop.

He turned the page.

There were dozens of them.

Dates, yardages, clubs, wind.

Short plain lines in the same hand, every few mornings, for almost two years.

6-iron, 176, a draw. Hit the oak on the far side of the water.

Wedge, 94, a high one. Landed soft.

Driver, 291. Quit after one. Sat on the bucket a long time.

A line near the back had been underlined twice.

Never once short of the flag when it counts.

He's not done.

Holt put the notebook down.

His hands were cold on the wicker.

The screen door opened behind him.

Bryn stood in an oversized gray T-shirt, barefoot, her hair flattened on one side.

She looked at the notebook, and then she looked at him.

"You weren't supposed to find that," she said.

"You wrote down every morning I thought I was alone."

"Not every morning."

"Twenty-one months, Bryn."

He kept his voice low because of the baby, but the words came out hard.

"I stood behind that barn and cried over a bucket of balls."

"I thought nobody in the world knew."

"And you kept a score."

"It wasn't a score."

"What was it?"

She came out onto the porch and pulled the door shut without a sound.

"The first morning, I came in early to fix a sprinkler head."

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