The room chuckled, the kind of laugh that resets a chest. I closed my fingers over the sticker and felt the glue and the faith that came with it. Outside, the rain softened into its last chapter. A gray seam appeared at the edge of the windows where night meets what comes after.
The captain’s radio popped once more. “Media staging at the flagpole in twenty,” dispatch said. “Community invited.”
Community. The word had weight now—wet wool and cocoa and old songs and new names.
I looked at the door. Beyond it, the flagpole stood in the lot like a sentence we owed. I looked at Luke, June, Doc, Rook, Ms. Patel, the nurses, the man with his tin of tools, the plant in the bin, the kids in their city of crackers.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll give them names.”
A cheer didn’t rise. Something better did: a hush that meant yes.
