Glynis and I stood in her doorway. I took my phone out of my pocket.
"I came to ask you something," I said. "There's a part of the video, near the beginning. Before Kenton says anything. It's Everett. I've watched it a lot, and I keep thinking you should have it. Not the whole thing. That's evidence, and it's not mine to give. But that part. It's eight seconds." I held up the phone so she could see. "If you want it, I'll send it to you. If you don't, I won't ask again."
She looked at the phone in my hand for a long time. I think we were both remembering the last time she'd held it.
Then she nodded.
I played it for her there, on the step, with the sound turned up. One minute and thirty-one seconds in. Glynis stepping out of the shade, a hand at her husband's elbow. Honey. It's the chlorine. And Everett, tired and a little hurt and completely, absolutely certain:
I know what chlorine is.
Glynis put her hand over her mouth, the way she had on the asphalt, and stood that way until the clip ended. Then she took her hand away, and said, "Send it, please," in a voice I could barely hear, and I did, and we heard her phone chime somewhere inside the house.
I don't know what's going to happen to her. Her hearing has been continued twice. Kenton's trial is set for spring, and the prosecutor has told me I'll be the first witness, and Keturah the second, and I've been told I can't talk to Keturah about any of it before then, which is a shame, because I would like to buy her a coffee. The Sotelos haven't decided about their lawsuit. The interim board is meeting on Thursday and has asked me, for the third time, whether I'll stand for president in the January election. Fern says I should. Nico says I'd be "kind of terrifying" at it, which I believe he means as a compliment.
I haven't answered yet. I'm not sure I want to sit at the front of that clubhouse. I'm not sure I'd be any good at it. But I've noticed that I don't stand on the step stool anymore when I look over the wall, because I don't need to. There's a gate now, in the block wall between my yard and the common area, which the interim board voted to let me put in, so that the next time something smells wrong I won't have to run around the outside. It has a latch that opens from either side.
Most evenings, around six, when the heat starts to break, Everett walks down to the pool with Glynis on one side and his little gray box on the other, and sits on the bench by the pump house, and watches the Bluewater technician test the water. Sometimes he calls out the numbers before the man reads them. He's usually right.