Chapter 9: The Name on the Helipad

The new Larch County helipad was a gray concrete circle at the edge of Redwing's base, and by noon on Saturday it had two hundred people around it.

There were three news vans and a ribbon, and a banner that said REDWING AIR RESCUE: WHEN IT MATTERS.

I stood at the back, behind the folding chairs, in Gran's red barn coat.

It was too big for me in the shoulders.

The neighbors had come in a line of pickup trucks, and they stood along the fence with their arms crossed.

Jonah stood at the end of that line, in the gray jacket, not looking at anyone.

"You don't have to go up there," he'd said that morning, at the orchard.

"I know."

"If you go up, he'll hand you the microphone. It's in his plan."

"I read his plan."

Dalton climbed onto the little platform in a navy suit, with Piper one step behind him in a cream dress.

She held Waffles by the blue leash, and the dog wore his gray vest.

"Today we honor a woman who put others before herself," Dalton said into the microphone.

His voice was warm, and he had a pause in the right places.

"Dorothea Teague gave this valley forty years of her life, and fifty years of apples. She would have hated a fuss." He smiled at the crowd.

A few people laughed, politely.

"So I'll keep it short. I'd like to invite her granddaughter, my wife, to say a few words."

Every camera turned toward me.

He held out one hand to the crowd, palm up, and waited.

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