The week between the hearing and the decision was the longest of my life. Asher went back to the boatworks, but he didn't sleep on the cot. He came up to the house for dinner, and then he came up to my room, and we sat on the bed with the window open and listened to the water.
We didn't talk about the board. We talked about other things. He told me about the boat he was building, a little sloop he'd been working on for two years, the one thing he'd made that didn't have anything to do with the Voss family. I told him about Dr. Reyes and the tremor and the way I'd spent six years learning to make myself small so no one would ask me questions.
"You didn't look small in that hearing," he said.
"I was terrified."
"I know. I could see your hands shaking."
"You could?"
"I always see." He t
