Chapter Fifteen J: The Table Without a Number
Marla entered the hall through the west door because she could not bear the thought of walking past the place where Nolan had shouted.
She carried Dennis’s brass tags in a pouch sewn from an old dish towel.
The tags felt heavier than they had in her kitchen.
At the center aisle, she found a table covered with photographs from the canceled festival.
Some showed people setting up stalls, and others showed families waiting outside the closed gates.
One photograph caught Dennis lifting a folding table beside a woman holding a ceramic bowl.
Marla recognized Ruth Ellery before anyone introduced them.
“You were there when he tried to help,” Marla said.
Ruth looked up from arranging her display.
“He was the only person who came back for the vendors after the argument started,
” she answered.
Marla placed the pouch on the table.
“I spent years thinking he had done something shameful,” she said.
“He came home exhausted and wouldn’t talk about that day.”
Ruth examined one of the brass tags.
“He was angry because the people who paid were being blamed for showing up,” she said.
Marla sat down on a folding chair.
For months, she had allowed Nolan to tell her what Dennis’s silence meant.
She had treated her husband’s grief as proof of guilt because she did not know what else to do with it.
Ruth poured water from a flask and handed her a cup.
“He wasn’t perfect,” Ruth said.
“He yelled at the wrong people when the tables were moved.”
Marla looked up.
“He did?”
“He apologized ten minutes later,
” Ruth replied.
“I remember because he carried my boxes after that.”
Marla gave a small, startled laugh.
“That sounds like Dennis.”
Evan approached the table with Iris and Lila.
Iris was holding her camera but kept it pointed toward the floor.
She asked Marla whether she wanted to speak about Dennis on film.
Marla looked at the lens, then at the broken nail on her thumb.
“Not while I feel like this,” she said.
Iris lowered the camera without complaint.
“We can talk without recording,” she replied.
They stood beside the table while the market filled with the noise of customers.
Marla told Iris about the first summer Dennis had volunteered at the festival.
He had spent three evenings painting the trolley backdrop because he wanted the children to have somewhere bright to take photographs.
He had come home with blue paint on his shoes and laughed when Marla asked whether the trolley was supposed to have wheels.
Iris listened without interrupting.
When Marla finished, Iris asked where the painted backdrop had gone.
Marla said it had been stored in a shed behind the old community center.
“It might still be there,” she added.
Iris looked toward Evan.
“Could we ask before we use it in the film?” she said.
Evan nodded.
For the first time that day, Marla seemed interested in something that might happen tomorrow.
