Chương 5
“She may.”
“It’s his.”
“Yes.”
“He gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
“Then she can’t have it.”
Denise placed a plate in front of Chloe. “Eat three bites before we decide who owns an American flag.”
“I’m not deciding. He decided.”
“He may have had reasons you don’t understand.”
“I understood him.”
“You knew him for three weeks.”
“Twenty-two days.”
“All right. Twenty-two days.”
“You didn’t talk to him.”
“I talked to him.”
“You asked if his trash needed emptying.”
“That was my job.”
“You never sat down.”
“No, because sitting down was not my job.”
Chloe pushed the plate away.
Denise leaned both hands on the counter. “Do not turn me into someone who did something wrong because I did not make friends with every patient on that floor.”
“He was alone.”
“So are a lot of people.”
“That’s worse.”
“I know it’s worse.”
“Then why didn’t you sit down?”
“Because I clean thirty-seven rooms. Because I have forty minutes to turn over a discharge room. Because if I sit with one lonely person, there are six more I pass in the hall. Because sometimes I can barely talk to you when we get home, and you are my child.”
Chloe stared at her.
The refrigerator clicked off. Traffic rolled past the building in a long, steady hiss.
Denise picked up her plate and carried it to the sink without eating.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was too much.”
Chloe’s voice came out smaller. “Were you mad I went in?”
“I was scared you’d get me in trouble.”
“You did get in trouble.”
“Yes.”
“So you were right.”
“That doesn’t mean I wish you hadn’t gone.”
Chloe touched the edge of the wax-paper bag.
“The first day, he asked if I was stealing.”
Denise turned around.
“I took a cookie from the cafeteria. He saw it in my pocket when I walked past.”
“You paid for it.”
“I was going to.”
“Chloe.”
“I paid the next day.”
“With what?”
“The quarters in the laundry jar.”
Denise pressed her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose.
“You stole from the cafeteria and then stole from our laundry money to repay the cafeteria.”
“I borrowed from the laundry money.”
“Did the laundry money agree?”
“I put back a dollar.”
“From where?”
“My backpack pocket.”
“Where did that dollar come from?”
“Aunt Tessa gave it to me.”
Denise looked at the ceiling.
“Is this what prison feels like?” Chloe asked.
“No. Prison probably has better financial records.”
Chloe’s mouth twitched.
Denise came to the table and sat across from her.
“What happened after he asked if you were stealing?”
“I told him it wasn’t his business.”
“That sounds like you.”
“He said everything was his business because he was bored.”
“Also believable.”
“He asked what kind. I said oatmeal raisin. He said those were old-person cookies.”
“He was not wrong.”
“Then he ate it.”
“Of course he did.”
“He only took half.”
Denise looked at the untouched cookie.
“And then you brought another one.”
“The cafeteria lady gave me the broken ones for fifty cents.”
“Mrs. Coleman?”
Chloe nodded.
“Mrs. Coleman has been charging you for damaged cookies?”
“She said it was inventory.”
“I’m going to have a conversation with Mrs. Coleman.”
“Don’t. She gives me two sometimes.”
Denise reached across the table and adjusted the folded towel beneath the flag, though it was already straight.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You would’ve said I couldn’t go.”
“I might have.”
“He said you would.”
“What else did he say about me?”
“That you walked like somebody was always calling your name.”
Denise’s hand stopped.
“What does that mean?”
“I asked. He said I’d know when I was older.”
“That is an irritating answer.”
“He had a lot of those.”
Denise looked toward the window. A city bus stopped in front of the tire shop. Three people got off. One stood in the heat unfolding a paper map even though the route sign was directly above him.
“Did he talk about his daughter?”
“No.”
“Any family?”
“He said his wife was dead.”
“Did he say her name?”
“Eleanor.”
Denise repeated it quietly, storing it.
“Did he tell you where he lived?”
“He said nowhere that stayed put.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“He was joking.”
“Maybe.”
Chloe pulled the envelope from her backpack.
The tape crackled when she peeled it away.
Inside was one sheet of lined paper folded twice. The writing was uneven and dark, as if Mr. Arthur had pressed the pen too hard.
Cookie Girl,
The flag is not a prize. Don’t let anyone make it one.
I kept it because I was afraid to send it where it belonged. Being afraid a long time can start looking like a decision. It isn’t.
Ask Hale about Rebecca Lane. He will try to speak like a general. Make him speak like Marcus.
The cookie was good.
A. Reed
Chloe read it twice.
Denise held out her hand. Chloe passed her the paper.
After reading, Denise sat back.
“He knew his daughter’s name,” Chloe said.
“Yes.”
“He told the hospital he had nobody.”
“Yes.”
“He told me he had nobody.”
Denise folded the letter along the same creases.
“It sounds like he believed he no longer had the right to claim her.”
“That’s stupid.”
“It can also be painful.”
“Painful things can be stupid.”
“Yes.”
“What does ‘where it belonged’ mean?”
Denise looked at the flag.
“I think we’re going to meet Rebecca Lane.”
The video reached three million views before dinner.
Denise learned this because Tessa arrived without knocking, carrying a bag of groceries and a face full of alarm.
“You’re famous,” she said.
“No one in this apartment is famous.”
Tessa held up her phone. “The internet disagrees.”
May you like
She was Denise’s younger sister by four years and looked enough like her that strangers often mistook them for twins until they spoke. Denise’s voice became quiet when she was angry. Tessa’s grew cheerful.
The video began with Chloe turning toward the officers. It did not show her entering the room or the cookie slipping. It showed General Hale kneeling, the five officers saluting, and the flag being placed into Chloe’s arms.
