Chương 11
“You were six,” Rebecca said.
“He let me bet cereal.”
“He took your cereal.”
“He gave it back.”
“He ate the marshmallows.”
Noah turned the deck over in his hands.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”
“I didn’t know.”
“You always say that.”
Rebecca flinched.
Noah put the cards down. “Sorry.”
“No. You’re right. I say it because it’s true, but that doesn’t make it useful.”
The patient-services employee cleared his throat. “There is also the document case.”
Inside the cloudy plastic case were military discharge papers, medical records, a photograph of Eleanor Reed, and fourteen envelopes addressed to Rebecca.
None had stamps.
The earliest was dated seven years ago. The latest was dated six weeks ago.
Rebecca touched the top envelope but did not pick it up.
“Do you want privacy?” Denise asked.
“I don’t know what I want.”
The employee looked at his inventory sheet. “As next of kin, these items are yours unless a document specifies otherwise.”
Everyone looked at Chloe.
The flag remained inside Denise’s tote.
Rebecca gathered the envelopes into a stack.
“I’ll read them later.”
Noah picked up the newest one. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“He wrote my name.”
The front of the envelope said REBECCA, MAYBE NOAH IF SHE THINKS HE’S OLD ENOUGH.
“I’m old enough.”
“You don’t know what’s inside.”
“Neither do you.”
“That is exactly why I should read it first.”
“You always read things first and then tell me the part you think I can handle.”
Rebecca’s face tightened with exhaustion.
“Noah, not here.”
“This is where the letters are.”
Denise stepped between them slightly, not blocking either.
“My daughter is ten,” she said. “I still think I can keep pain out by choosing the order she receives it. It has not worked once.”
Rebecca looked at her.
“That isn’t advice,” Denise added. “It’s just a bad review of the method.”
Noah placed the envelope on the table.
Rebecca put one hand over it.
“We read it together,” she said. “At home.”
He nodded, though not happily.
The plastic document case also held a bank envelope containing two hundred dollars and a receipt from a pawnshop. Arthur had sold a wristwatch three months earlier.
Hale recognized the description.
“It was presented to him when he retired.”
Rebecca laughed bitterly. “Of course he sold the valuable thing and kept the flag.”
Noah looked at the money. “What happens to that?”
“It goes to the estate,” the employee said.
“What estate?”
The employee glanced at the wallet, shoes, and expired transit cards.
“It is the legal term.”
Noah picked up the paperback novel. A bus transfer marked page 143.
“What was he reading?”
“The Old Man and the Sea,” Chloe said.
“You read it?”
“He said nothing happened except a fish was rude.”
Noah opened to the marked page.
“He was near the end.”
“He always fell asleep.”
Rebecca touched the photograph of Eleanor.
Her mother stood in a backyard wearing denim overalls and holding a garden hose. The flag flew from a pole behind her, its lower edge caught in a tree branch.
“That’s the flag,” Rebecca said.
Chloe moved beside her.
“How can you tell?”
“My mother sewed the edge after a storm tore it. Her stitches leaned left.”
Denise retrieved the folded flag from the tote.
Hale helped unfold it across the metal table.
The fabric opened slowly, revealing age along the white stripes and faint discoloration near the grommets. At one corner, a line of small uneven stitches pulled the hem together.
Rebecca placed her fingertips over them.
“She repaired everything badly,” she said.
Noah leaned closer. “You sew badly.”
“I learned from her.”
Chloe looked from the stitches to Mr. Arthur’s letter.
“The flag is not a prize.”
She understood one thing, though not enough.
Mr. Arthur had not given her a perfect military symbol. He had given her something that had hung above a house, torn in a storm, been repaired by his wife, and remained with him after he lost nearly everything else.
It did not belong only to the man who carried it away.
Chloe began refolding it.
General Hale reached to help, then stopped when she shook her head.
She did not know the official method. Her triangle came out loose. The blue field twisted, and one red stripe remained visible.
Rebecca watched.
“My mother would have hated that,” she said.
“Did Mr. Arthur fold it right?”
“Always.”
“Then you do it.”
Rebecca hesitated.
Chloe stepped aside.
Rebecca folded the flag with practiced hands, though she had claimed not to sew well. Noah held one end. Denise held the other when the fabric stretched beyond the table. Hale stood back.
The final triangle was not as tight as the one the general had placed in Chloe’s arms, but no red showed.
Rebecca rested both palms on it.
Chloe said, “He gave it to me because he was afraid to give it to you.”
Rebecca’s mouth tightened.
“I think so.”
“He wanted me to do it.”
“He did not write that.”
“He wrote that it wasn’t a prize.”
“That could mean many things.”
“He wrote your name.”
“Yes.”
“He said ask General Hale.”
“Yes.”
“He knew we’d find you.”
“Maybe.”
Chloe lifted the flag.
Rebecca’s hands remained beneath it for a second before withdrawing.
“I’m giving it to you,” Chloe said.
Noah looked at his mother.
Rebecca did not take it.
“You don’t have to decide today.”
“I decided.”
“Because you think I’m sad?”
“Because he was scared for too long.”
“That was his problem.”
“He made it mine.”
The words sounded harsh after she said them, but they were true.
Rebecca looked at the flag.
“I spent years wishing he would give me one honest thing,” she said. “Not a medal. Not a story about the war. Not another promise that he was getting better.”
“This is honest.”
“It’s cloth.”
“It has your mom’s bad stitches.”
May you like
Noah made a sound that might have been a laugh.
Rebecca touched the repaired edge.
