Luke reached for the flag like a librarian reaching for a first edition. He tucked it into his vest under the leather, over the heart, no drama. When we carried the gentleman—Mr. Keegan—down the stairs, he tapped the place where the flag lay and closed his eyes like a prayer he had known since he was nineteen.
At the landing, a chair wheel snagged on a strip of torn rubber. Rook knelt, slid the wheel free, and retied the strap like straightening a tie before a photo. Ms. Greene, on her quilt sled, patted his cheek. “You tie pretty,” she said. “My Arthur used to tie packages at the store just like that.”
“Arthur taught us all,” Rook said, and Ms. Greene smiled at a man she had never met in a town that had always been hers.
At the lobby door, the rain shifted to that thin, wind-driven kind that finds the space between your collar and your neck. We raised blankets like hoods. A volunteer met us with umbrellas they hadn’t asked to be heroes. Doc appeared like a moving boundary line with a thermometer and two hot packs and told a joke about tea that wasn’t funny and landed like relief anyway.
