By the time we returned to the fellowship hall with the last chair, the room had rearranged itself into a town: kids on the rug building a city out of crackers and paper cups; parents at the door learning a new kind of line; nurses sorting meds onto a card table as if it had always been a med cart. The pizza-box list had become two damp pages clipped to a music stand. “We’re a choir,” Ms. Patel said when I looked at it, and I didn’t know if she meant voices or names.
The floodlights fluttered twice and stayed lit like stubborn candles. The wrecker operator came in, hair trying to be steam. “Your bridge is holding,” he told the captain. “Road north is still out. EOC says daylight by six. They’re asking for a spokesperson at dawn over by the flagpole.”
“Spokesperson,” she repeated, tasting the word like checking for shell in batter. She looked around the room—at Doc, June, Rook, Luke; at Ms. Patel and her penciled choir; at Zoe with her lists and Liam with his knit crown; at the business-suit man pouring cocoa like penance and the teenager matching socks like art. Then her gaze landed on me.
