She came on foot, not in the golf cart, and she stood at the bottom of my porch steps the way she hadn't the first time, like she wasn't sure she was allowed to come up. She'd lost weight, or maybe it was just that she wasn't holding a folder. She was holding an envelope.
"It's a check," she said. "For the fees. Your attorney's. I know the board's covering it. I wanted to cover it myself." She held it out. "You don't have to take it."
I came down and took it. Not for the money. Because I thought she needed somebody to take something from her.
"How's Boone?" I asked.
She looked surprised. Then her face crumpled, just slightly, and steadied. "He's seeing someone. A counselor. In Austin. He drives in on Tuesdays." She hesitated. "He asked me something last week, and I told him I'd ask you, but I don't think I have any right to."
"Ask anyway."
"He wanted to know how somebody becomes a lineworker." She almost laughed. "He said when that inspector looked at his wiring, he realized he didn't actually know anything. And he wanted to. He's always been good with his hands. He just never had anybody show him."
I thought about Boone standing in the gravel with his laptop, saying I told you I'd pay it back. I thought about a twenty-two-year-old woman standing in a co-op yard in 1991 while six men bet on how long she'd last.
"Blanco Ridge takes apprentice applications in January," I said. "He'd have to start on the ground. Groundhand. It's hard work, and it's hot, and nobody's going to care whose son he is. If he means it, he can come talk to me."
Glenda nodded. She didn't say thank you, and I was glad, because I didn't know what I'd have said back. Then she said, "Rae. The report. With the sheriff."
"I know."