Chương 6
Words had been added across the bottom:
HOMELESS WAR HERO’S LAST WISH WAS TO GIVE HIS FLAG TO THE LITTLE GIRL WHO BROUGHT HIM COOKIES.
Soft piano music played over the hospital sounds.
Chloe watched four seconds before Denise took the phone away.
“Who posted it?”
“A page called Heartland Honor.”
“Who gave it to them?”
“No idea. It’s been copied everywhere.”
“They called him homeless.”
“Was he?”
“I don’t know.”
“They called Chloe an angel.”
Denise’s expression hardened. “She stole the first cookie.”
“People contain multitudes.”
“People contain unpaid cafeteria inventory.”
Tessa set the groceries on the counter. “There are news vans at the hospital.”
Chloe looked toward the window as though they might be outside the apartment too.
“Do they know my name?”
“Not yet.”
“Do not say ‘yet,’” Denise said.
Tessa crouched beside Chloe’s chair. “Nobody gets your name unless your mom says so.”
“Can Mr. Arthur’s daughter see it?”
“Probably.”
Chloe looked at the flag.
“Then she thinks he gave it to me instead of her.”
Tessa glanced at Denise.
“We don’t know what she thinks.”
“General Hale said she’s coming.”
“Here?”
“No,” Denise said. “We are not having a military reunion in my kitchen.”
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She silenced it.
It rang again.
Tessa began putting groceries away. “I bought cereal.”
“We have cereal.”
“You have cereal dust.”
“That is still cereal.”
Chloe unfolded Mr. Arthur’s letter and read the line about fear again.
Being afraid a long time can start looking like a decision.
Her mother’s phone kept vibrating.
At six twenty, General Hale sent a text instead of calling.
Rebecca Lane has agreed to meet tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. in a private conference room at the hospital. She knows about Chloe and the flag. She is understandably upset. I will not proceed without your consent.
Denise read the message aloud.
“What does understandably mean?” Chloe asked.
“It means the general expects her to be angry.”
“Does he expect me to give it back?”
“He didn’t say.”
“I’m not.”
Tessa closed a cabinet. “Maybe meet her before deciding.”
“Mr. Arthur already decided.”
“Mr. Arthur also hid from her.”
“He didn’t hide. He was in a hospital.”
“For three weeks,” Denise said. “We don’t know where he was before that.”
Chloe folded the letter.
“He trusted me.”
“Yes,” Denise said. “But we don’t know what he trusted you to do.”
That night, Chloe placed the flag on the desk beside her bed.
Her room was narrow enough that the desk chair hit the mattress when pulled out. Glow-in-the-dark stars covered one wall. Denise had promised to repaint when Chloe turned ten, but Chloe had decided she liked seeing the crooked constellations they made when she was six.
The wax-paper bag sat beside the flag.
At eleven fourteen, Chloe was still awake.
Denise came in without turning on the light. She sat on the edge of the mattress and tucked one foot beneath her.
“You need sleep.”
“So do you.”
“I’m the adult. We make poor choices after bedtime.”
“Are you fired?”
“No decision yet.”
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
The answer came too quickly to be false.
Chloe watched headlights move across the ceiling.
“Would you make me give the flag back?”
“I would make you listen.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Answer the easier question.”
Denise leaned against the wall.
“I don’t know if I would make you give it back.”
“You could.”
“I’m your mother.”
“You could just take it.”
“Yes.”
“Would you?”
Denise looked at the flag on the desk.
“When Grandma died, she left me her sewing machine.”
“The green one?”
“Yes. Tessa wanted it.”
“Aunt Tessa can’t sew.”
“That was not the point.”
“What was the point?”
“She remembered Grandma using it. So did I. We fought about it in the parking lot outside the lawyer’s office.”
“Who won?”
“I took it home.”
“So you.”
“I took it home and put it in a closet for six years because every time I looked at it, I felt guilty.”
“Then Aunt Tessa got it?”
“No. It flooded when the pipe broke.”
Chloe turned toward her. “That’s terrible.”
“It was also very stupid.”
“Did Aunt Tessa forgive you?”
“She makes comments every Christmas.”
“That means no.”
“That means family.”
Chloe watched another stripe of headlights cross the ceiling.
“What would Grandma have wanted?”
“She wanted me to have it.”
“Then why did you feel guilty?”
“Because getting what someone wanted me to have still hurt someone else.”
Chloe was quiet.
Denise touched the end of her braid.
“You don’t have to solve everything tomorrow.”
“Mr. Arthur died today.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t get tomorrow.”
“No.”
“That’s why everybody else shouldn’t waste it.”
Denise looked down at her hands.
“You sound like him.”
“He said I sounded like you.”
“That poor man was confused.”
Chloe finally leaned against her mother’s shoulder.
Neither of them mentioned the meeting again.
Rebecca Lane arrived at the hospital ten minutes early and refused coffee.
She was forty-two, with straight dark hair cut at her jaw and a thin white scar near her left eyebrow. She wore black pants, a gray blouse, and running shoes that squeaked faintly on the conference-room floor. Nothing about her resembled Mr. Arthur until she took off her glasses and cleaned them on the edge of her shirt.
Chloe noticed immediately.
General Hale stood when Rebecca entered.
She did not shake his hand.
“You’re Marcus Hale.”
“Yes.”
“My father called you twice last year.”
The general’s hand dropped.
Rebecca set a folder on the table. “May seventeenth and September third.”
“I spoke to him in May.”
“For seven minutes.”
Hale’s expression remained controlled. “Yes.”
“In September, you let it go to voicemail.”
“Yes.”
“He left a message.”
“I know.”
“Did you listen to it?”
“Not until yesterday.”
May you like
Rebecca nodded once, as though confirming something she had already decided.
Denise pulled out a chair for Chloe. They sat together across from Rebecca. The folded flag remained inside a plain canvas tote at Denise’s feet. She had refused the polished wooden display case an officer offered in the lobby.
