Chapter 24: The Whole Song

The band played something slow, and eighty people moved off the dance floor to the edges of the lawn.

Strings of white lights hung over the grass, and the lake lay dark behind them.

Kendrick sat in his chair at the center of the floor with his hand held out.

Becky crossed to him in her ivory dress and put her fingers in his palm.

"You're sure," she said.

"I have the rail."

He tipped his head toward a waist-high brass post Max had set at the edge of the floor.

"And I have you."

"I'm not a rail."

"You're better. You hold on back."

He pulled himself up.

His arms closed around her waist.

Then he was standing in the middle of the floor with his cheek against her temple.

He was nearly a head taller than she was.

She had forgotten that.

"One," Kendrick said under his breath. "Two."

"You're counting again."

"I'm not counting seconds. I'm counting the song."

They swayed.

It was not dancing.

It was two people holding each other up while a band played, and she did not care.

Twenty seconds passed.

Then forty.

His breath was ragged against her hair, and his hands tightened, and she said nothing and held him.

"Becky."

"Mm."

"This is the longest I've stood in two years."

"I know. I'm counting too."

She felt his smile, and she felt the shake in him settle into something steadier.

The song went on.

At the second chorus Wendell began to clap.

The bakery women joined him, and then the whole lawn, until the sound ran out across the water.

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