Chapter 2

The woman from the second row lowered her hand. A damp half-moon remained beneath each eye, and she kept looking toward the empty chairs.

"Was this the first year?"

Silas stopped stacking the programs. Marisol's fingers loosened around the microphone cord, but the last loop stayed caught across her wrist.

"The first year for what?" he asked.

The woman touched her throat. "For someone else to read the letter."

I set the water tin beneath my chair. Its chipped side found the heel of my shoe, and I held it there while Marisol looked at me.

Silas squared the programs against his palm. He had arranged the lectern, tested the speakers, and placed Marisol's chair where the cedar shadow would reach it. He had also moved my closing card to his own stack before anyone arrived.

"The letter was written to Marisol," he said. "The town should hear it from her."

The woman glanced at me. I had read my mother's words at seventeen memorials, always after the bell and before the names. I had carried the same tin down the same narrow path when the chairs were gone.

"Only this once?" I asked.

Silas tucked the programs under his arm. "It made sense this way."

My thumb pressed the tin's handle until the metal ridge marked my skin. He did not look pleased with himself. He checked the unplugged speaker, counted the folded chairs beside the cedar, and bent to retrieve a dropped program from the grass.

For eighteen years, I had mistaken his place beside the lectern for habit. He remembered which families needed front seats and which names required a pause. He knew when the bell rope stuck in wet weather. Every detail had an answer before anyone asked.

Including me.

Marisol freed her wrist from the cord. "I can give it back."

"It's finished," I said.

She folded the letter along its old crease. The page would fit inside her handbag, but she held it between both palms as if no place belonged to it.

The woman from the second row picked up her coat. She passed me slowly, then stopped beside the tin under my chair.

"Your mother always had roses," she said.

"Seven today."

Her mouth tightened before she walked toward the gate. Beyond her, two late visitors stood beside the notice board, waiting for Silas to finish so they could thank him.

He went to them first. He accepted their hands, asked after a stone repaired in spring, and promised to check the north path before rain. His voice stayed low and useful. By the time he returned, Marisol had put the letter away.

"Ready?" he asked me.

I lifted the empty tin. "No."

He waited, one hand inside his jacket. His face changed for half a second, then settled into the patient expression he used when a family forgot a date.

"Next year," I said. "Who reads it?"

The last chair snapped shut behind us. Silas drew out the printed schedule, folded it twice along the lines I had typed, and slipped it into his jacket.