I gave her an apron. Her first sheet came out even and clean. When she lifted the mould away from the felt, she laughed, surprised.
"Huh," she said. "It really is for paper."
"I told you."
"You did," she said. "And I wrote it down."
* * *
Gus came last, at sunset, after everyone else had gone, with a flat package wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.
Inside was a photograph printed on one of my own sheets. It was a still from his trail camera, taken that April. In the grey-green of night vision, a young vixen sat in the lavender at the base of my mailbox with her tail curled around her paws, looking straight into the lens as if she owned the street. In the corner, it said 04/22 5:41 AM.
"Her daughter," Gus said. "Denned in the same culvert this spring. Four kits. She likes your lavender too." He cleared his throat. "I figured that mailbox ought to have at least one picture worth keeping."
We hung it in the garage over the vat with two bulldog clips. When he'd gone home to his roses, I stood in the garage doorway with two hundred new sheets drying on the racks behind me. That was enough for the newsletter and the minutes and a great many thank-you notes.
Up the hill, on the deck where Darlene used to stand, the Okonkwos sat in a row with Professor, all of them facing west. Through the gap in the middle of my yard, the Owyhees were turning the colour of a ripe peach, the way they do every clear October evening, whether anyone is watching or not. One of the twins spotted me and waved, and then all of them were waving.
I waved back with both hands, wet to the elbows. Then I went in to start another batch.