Chapter 22

Chelseaville May 1976

Hope ran around town out among the people she loved in ways she didn’t know, desperately trying to love them and build more memories with them within the given time span: helping out at the opening of the dock yard, the first ever in all of Chelseaville, and volunteering with Mrs. Mirrors’ daughter Ruby ,with her bake-do at the senior centre in Fairhope, serenading at the Jug and Lion with hopes of making everyone fall into a spell under her voice, thinking they’d forget her imminent departure which worked on every soul, except for one. And as he watched her wear herself out for a memory to cherish, it just made him want to be there for her even more, because he knew she was not making the town forget, but herself, which was slowly killing her.