The Chair Beside Mine

The town hall meeting was written on the card in Mrs. Dorr’s square hand. Thursday, two o’clock. Mending circle. All welcome.

I had read it enough times to know where every letter leaned. The card sat beside the flour tin at Clara’s bakery, where I could see it whenever I reached for a spoon.

Mrs. Dorr came in on Thursday morning to buy thread. She set her coins on the counter and waited while I counted them.

“Are you coming this afternoon?” she asked.

My fingers stopped over the till. “I don’t know.”

“That’s all right.” She tucked the thread into her coat pocket. “We’ll be there either way.”

It would have been easier if she had told me I had to come. Then I could have said no and known what to do with myself. Instead, she left me the choice.

Clara was kneading dough in the back room. When I told her about the question, she wiped her hands and came to the counter.

“Would you like me to walk with you?” she asked. “I can come in, or wait nearby. You choose.”

I looked toward the window. People passed on the street in pairs, talking as they went. The town hall was only a few blocks away. I could make it there without stopping. I knew that. Knowing it didn’t make my stomach settle.

“Come with me,” I said. “But let me find the table.”

“Of course.”

I brought a small tin of cinnamon rounds. Nobody had asked me to bring food. I needed something to carry besides the thought of turning around.

At the town hall door, voices and chair legs scraped from inside. I held the tin with both hands. Clara stood beside me, not touching.

“Mrs. Dorr said the meeting was in the big room,” she said. “I remember the hall from the harvest supper.”

“I can hear them.”

“Then you know where we’re going.” She waited.

I pushed the door open.

The room held more people than the bakery ever did. A few sat at long tables with cloth, thread, and baskets of clothes laid out between them. Others stood near the windows, talking in small groups. The conversation thinned when I came in.

No one shouted. No one moved toward me. Still, every face turned my way. I felt the tin grow heavy in my hands.

Mrs. Dorr stood at the nearest table. She lifted one hand, not waving me over so much as letting me know she’d seen me.

“Toby,” she said. “There’s a chair here.”