Chapter 2

Below the blue line, in the same neat hand, she had written May 20, 1997.

For a long second it sat there between us like a date that meant something I had already agreed to. Halene didn’t pull the file back. She waited with one finger still on the counter, and through the window Kit’s hand closed the junk drawer.

“That’s just the day I missed it,” I said. “Yes,” Halene said. “You gave me that date when you arrived.” “I gave you the story.” “And the date.” She turned the file around and tapped the line. “I fill in what people say. Not what I think they meant.”

I wanted to argue that the order made it look like an accusation. I was four hours dead, and already the file made me into a mother with one unfinished sentence. Maybe that was true.

“What do I do with it?” I asked. “You finish it.” Halene lifted her hand. “Not to me. To whoever is still down there.” Below the window, Kit pulled a roll of packing tape from the junk drawer and set it on the table. She didn’t look up.

The waiting hall smelled like hot paper and floor cleaner. The board near the counter showed a row of dates, and August 5 glowed at the far end like a slow alarm. I asked Halene how I was supposed to tell Kit anything.

She walked me to the viewing room, which was down a short hall with the same gray chairs outside. Inside, the window looked straight into my kitchen, bright and airless in the June heat. Kit had already opened the cabinet under the sink and started stuffing dish towels into a box. I could hear the box scrape across the floor, but Kit couldn’t hear me.

Halene didn’t speak for a moment. Then she told me the rules: I could see and hear the places tied to the unfinished thing, not every place my daughter went. I could make two signals, and only two, if I paid for them with one memory each. No voice. No opening a drawer. No writing on a wall.

“So I can’t just hand her the letter,” I said. “No,” Halene said. “I can’t hand her anything either.”

I looked at my name on a small printed card outside the door. Joanie Pike, 49 days remaining. Below that, in the same print, a note said the afternoon viewing block was already full.

By the time I got back to my seat, Kit had sealed one box. She built it with the same quick hands she’d had as a girl, and she taped it shut without touching the shallow drawer. Then she stacked it by the back door and wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

I sat there until Halene found me. She didn’t offer more help. She set two gray request slips on the counter between us, side by side.