“The books are balanced down to the absolute last cent.”
I set my coffee mug down on the cedar table.
I reached out with my hand, taking his strong, warm, calloused fingers into mine, feeling his steady, untroubled pulse beating strong in the morning light.
Running across the lawn, her sturdy little legs moving with that fierce, untroubled, bubbling velocity of pure childhood joy…
Came eight-year-old Lily.
She was magnificent.
Her dark curls caught the morning sun in brilliant, golden-brown highlights; her cheeks were round and pink, glowing with that fierce, un-killable Bennett vitality that had survived the storm.
In her tiny hands, she carried her great-grandfather’s miniature brass surveyor’s rule, holding it up toward the sky as she ran up the cedar steps of the deck, throwing her little body against her mother’s knees:
“Mama! Look! Brass!”
I leaned down, lifting my daughter into my arms, feeling her warm, steady, seventy-beat pulse beating strong against my chest, her little fingers gently, curiously touching the bronze transit pin on my collar.
