She stopped at the edge of the dock.
She didn’t come out on it. She didn’t sit.
She looked at the cattails a long time. At the new ones I’d planted along the east bank, coming up
green in the mud. At the old stand at the dam end. At the cottonwood. At the cane pole lying on the dock with her name on the tape.
Then she said, “Jess, I need to tell you what Mom told me the week before my wedding.”
Chapter Seven: What Mom Said
I set my cane pole down across my knees.
“Okay,” I said.
Brittany didn’t move. She stood at the edge of the dock with her arms wrapped around herself, even though it wasn’t cold.
“Can I sit?” she asked.
“It’s your dock too.”
She looked at me sharply. Then she walked out to the end, carefully, like she wasn’t sure it would hold her. She sat down next to me. Not close. A foot of space between us.
