Chapter 18: End of a Long Day
When the couches and chairs are filled, people sit on the floor, and when there’s no room left to walk through the living room, those standing congregate in the doorways and spill out into the hall. We’re all here—the great-aunts, my own aunts and uncles, my adult cousins. We talk quietly among ourselves, telling each other of our trip to Sugar Creek, where we were or what we were doing when the phone rang Saturday night. Like survivors of a terrible disaster, come together to reminisce, to prove to ourselves and each other that we made it, we’re still alive, we’ll get through this if we only stick together.
Only it’s not over—this ordeal has barely begun. Dan stays at my side, his arm draped behind me, his body a comfort where it presses against mine. I kee
