Emily reached across the table and rested her hand gently over Ruth’s. “You’re allowed to be scared,” she said. “That doesn’t make you weak. It just makes you human. But you’re not as unprotected as you think you are, Mrs. Palmer. This whole room tonight, every person in it, they’re on your side. That counts for something.” Ruth studied her for a moment, something steadying behind her eyes. “You always know just what to say,” she said. “You didn’t learn that mopping floors.” Emily smiled, but didn’t answer that one. She never did. She didn’t say anything else.
By 6:30, the gymnasium was filling up fast. Cedar Falls didn’t have much in the way of entertainment on a Saturday night, and word had gotten around that this year’s gala had something extra. A martial arts demonstration. Free self-defense lessons for anyone who wanted to learn. For a town with a lot of folks living alone, a lot of widows and widowers who worried about walking to their cars after dark, that sounded like exactly the kind of thing worth showing up for.
Walt Higgins was one of the first to arrive. Walt was seventy-eight years old, built like a man who used to be much bigger than he was now, though he still carried himself with the kind of posture that made people straighten up when he walked into a room. For thirty-one years, Walt had served as a sheriff’s deputy in this county, the last nine of them as the assistant chief deputy. He’d retired twelve years ago, but Cedar Falls never really let him retire. He still coached the youth wrestling program at the middle school. He still showed up to every town meeting and asked the hard questions nobody else wanted to ask. People trusted Walt Higgins. That trust had been earned the slow way over decades, one small kindness at a time.
His wife, Margaret, walked in beside him, her arm looped through his. Margaret was sixty-nine, a retired elementary school librarian, and she remembered every child who ever walked through her library doors, including the little girl named Emily Reeves, who used to spend her summer afternoons curled up in the reading corner with a stack of books twice her size. Margaret spotted Emily across the gym and gave a small wave. Emily waved back. “There’s my girl,” Margaret said to Walt, warmth in her voice. “Can’t believe she’s all grown up. Poor thing’s got her hands full these days from what she just told me. Her father’s not well. Some fellow named Marcus checks on him evenings so she can work.” Walt nodded, filing that away the easy, unhurried way he filed away most things, though his eyes were already looking past Emily toward the stage where something had caught his attention.