Chapter 24: Hand-Lettered

On the last Sunday of August the diner in Kettle Falls opened at six, and by seven every stool was taken.

My mother ran the grill with her cane hooked on the rail and her braid tucked under a net.

On the corkboard above the register, between the specials and a church supper flyer, she had pinned two things.

One was a newspaper clipping with a headline about the Halvard board and a former chair.

The other was a postcard from Mamie, from a town in New Mexico, with a picture of a cactus.

*I'm writing something of my own,* it said. *It's terrible. I'm going to finish it anyway. T.*

My mother had read both aloud to every customer who came in.

I sat in the back booth with a pen and a stack of paper, in the corner by the window.

The notebooks were new, bought at the drugstore in town, and I had dated the first page.

Knox stood at the dish pit in an apron that said LINDQVIST'S in red thread.

He had been washing plates for two hours.

My mother had decided on his first morning that a man who couldn't carry a tray should at least wash a pan.

He had learned both.

"You're holding that mug wrong," she said, going by with an order.

"How do I hold a mug?"

"By the handle, Professor."

"I'm not a professor."

"I know it. I'm reporting it to the regulars."

He caught my eye across the diner, and I looked down at my page, because I was trying not to laugh.

Chapter eleven was nearly done.

I had written it out by hand in the booth over three mornings.

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