Twenty steps onto the grass and the ferry was already lost; the rest was only how.
The teacher had come down to the chestnuts. The account was being given again, with the pages for evidence and the crying to keep time.
What was said next was not for the grass to hear. A minute, maybe less. The teacher listening, then looking — not at the one still crying, but past, to where the notebook had come apart, and to the hands that had held it.
The crying went on a moment out of habit, then found nothing under it, and stopped climbing. The words it had been gathering were not there to gather.
By then the pier had its gates closed and the 4:45 was a length out, turning.
The next boat was too far back to matter. A taxi, then — around the water instead of over it, the long line of the shore, the light going as it went. Twice it stopped and did not move, and the shore held where it was, and the dashboard clock turned over while nothing else did.
The desk still had someone at it. The 7:45 was gone; the screen had already dropped it from the board. There was one seat left on anything that reached the city that night — 4:15, landing at 6:04.
Six.
The bag had not been opened since the door.