“Your father would be pleased.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
She seemed surprised.
I smiled.
“He’d complain we wasted money on lawyers.”
She laughed.
“You really did know him.”
“No.”
I looked toward the courthouse doors.
“I’m only starting to.”
Six months later, construction began.
Local businesses donated supplies.
Frank recruited retired tradesmen.
The story spread through the county.
Then the state.
Donations began arriving.
Twenty dollars.
Fifty.
A thousand.
A woman whose brother had schizophrenia donated $5,000.
A father who had lost his daughter to suicide funded the counseling room.
A local contractor built two cabins at cost.
Within eighteen months, Margaret’s Place opened its doors.
Mom cut the ribbon.
Frank cried and denied it.
I mounted Dad’s old fishing rods in the main lodge.
Above them, I hung the five pairs of shoes.
People often asked why.
I always told them:
“They belonged to someone who thought he was walking alone.”
