And then I got hurt days later and everything changed. I barely saw howIwas supposed to fit into my new reality, let alone how she would. But she surprised me then too.
She didn’t panic and run; she didn’t even gradually fade away like most of my other friends. She stayed. She was there for my dadand me even when I tried to push her away. And once I realized my life didn’t end with my wheelchair, she was still there.
And I... I know we wouldn’t have made it without her.
I take her hand now, startling her out of her remembered embarrassment, and tell her, “I can’t imagine these past four years without you.”
She tucks her wet hair behind her ear with her free hand. “Me either.”
Her smile has real warmth to it this time, but it fades when my phone dings and we both see the text that comes through.
Lili:Whatever you’re doing, stop and call me right now.
Twenty-Six
Wren
Eryn sees the text from Lili when it flashes on my phone, but doesn’t react the way anyone else in her position might.
She doesn’t frown or sigh, she just sits back and in a normal voice says, “I hope everything is okay.”
“I’ll just be a second,” I tell her, lifting the phone to my ear.
Lili answers on the first ring.
“Wren. Where are you and how quickly can you get to my neighbor’s house?”
“What’s going on? Your voice is all high and shaky.” I make eye contact with Eryn, who is leaning in, trying to hear.
“Everything is fine, but you need to come over now. Not my house, my neighbor’s house.”
“Is something wrong with Mrs. Mayhew?” I’m reaching for the gear shift before I’ve even finished speaking.
“No, she fine, the cats are fine.” I hear her inhale like she’s trying to steady her voice. “Wren, I found something. And I’m honestly afraid to look at it too closely without you. It might be—”There’s another pause. “If it’s real, then I’m holding a letter written to Kezia Gardner dated December 22, 1776.”
“Did you say the twenty-second?”
“Yes. Tell me I’m wrong about what good King George passed that day.”
I clutch the phone tighter. “The Prohibitory Act.” It was the tipping point for the Revolutionary War when Britain barred any country from trading with the US, on pain of forfeiture of the ship and all goods to the Crown.
There’s absolute silence from Lili’s end of the phone.
“Who’s it from?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Lili, who was writing to her?”
“It’s from Edmund Harrington.”
I close my eyes.
“Do you recognize that name?” she asks, almost in a whisper.
“Yeah, I recognize it. He, um, was an American-born merchant and customs official who worked for the British government. He was a Loyalist through and through.”
“Well,” she says, her lighthearted words immediately undercut by the break in her voice. “That doesn’t look good for my girl, does it?”
