Waking Hours by Lis Wiehl

home?” she asked.
    Willis thanked her but told her he had a personal caregiver now who drove him.
    “Bette didn’t pass the test when she went to renew her driver’s license,” he said. “She’ll get it next time, but they make you wait six months before you can take it again. You can walk me to my car though.”
    They made small talk as she helped him down the steps and across the parking lot. When they got to his car, where his caregiver waited for him, he said, “So you’re a psychiatrist. Do you have an office here in town?”
    “I do,” she said. “Right on Main Street. But my clinical practice is on hold. I’ve been working with the courts . . .” She stopped when she noticed his expression. Something was bothering him. “Are you okay? Do you need somebody to talk to?”
    He took a deep breath. “I’m having a little trouble sleeping. My gerontologist thought I should talk to someone like you, but I don’t know any therapists.”
    She had the feeling he wasn’t telling her the whole truth.
    “If you’re worried about what happened on Bull’s Rock Hill—”
    “No, no,” he said. “This started some time ago. Before that.”
    “I can see you if you’d like,” she said. “I’ll have to check when I have time.”
    “If it’s a bother . . .”
    “It’s not,” Dani said. “I just need to find an opening in my schedule. I’ll call you.”
    “Thank you,” he said, his lower lip trembling. “Thank you. I came here tonight hoping to have a word with you. Just let me know when it’s convenient for you.”
    She watched him drive away, his caregiver behind the wheel.
    Then it occurred to her—how could Willis Danes have come to the Grange Hall hoping to speak with her? Her attendance hadn’t been announced. She hadn’t known herself that she’d be at the town meeting until shortly before the event.
    It was probably just one of those things people said when they were making casual conversation. Yet it reminded her, improbably, of the deer hanging from the wires, not in the content as much as the sense that strange things were happening for a reason. It was one sign of mental disturbance, she knew, to see patterns where none existed.
    Don’t let the job get to you, Dani, she told herself. John Foley had given her the same advice.
    Easier said than done.

11 .
     
    There wasn’t a square inch of the football field at East Salem High that Tommy didn’t know intimately. He’d probably spat half of it back out after having his face planted in the turf, making a tackle. He’d run up and down the bleachers when he was in training for football or track, and he’d scrambled beneath them as a boy, chasing or hiding from his friends. But he’d never seen it like this, somber and solemn and dedicated to a higher purpose. Three girls in school hoodies handed out small white candles at the gates by the scoreboard, newcomers lighting theirs from candles already lit. Some kids had apps on their smart phones that displayed pictures of candles.
    Tommy paused by the gates where people who knew Julie Leonard had erected a kind of memorial to her, signs and notes and photographs taped to the fence. There were pictures of her marching in the Memorial Day parade in her Brownies uniform and pictures of her at Girl Scout camp. From her art class, examples of her artwork. She was a gifted painter and an even better drawer. Handwritten notes on the fence said, We miss you, Julie! and We’ll never forget you . Someone had even mounted an iPad displaying a video clip of Julie playing the tuba in the school pep band and laughing at herself, her eyes bulging to match her cheeks. What kind of girl played the tuba, Tommy wondered. One who didn’t take herself too seriously, he guessed, or who didn’t care what people thought of her—or wanted people to think she didn’t care.
    Kids gathered in small groups, holding hands or leaning against the landing pad by the pole vault pit or sitting on tackling dummies,