16:50 · afternoon
Truly finally says the bridge hooks were done wrong and will open at about eight. Chatty goes up the lane at speed. They are redone before five, with Oopsy helping and never once mentioning whose fault it was.
3 fluffs tell this minute. None of them saw the same one.
And in that minute Truly told me that the three bridge hooks had been done through the wire instead of the loop that morning, and would hold until about eight o'clock tonight, and then open like a paperclip — over the water, in the dark, in the middle of the party.
Truly had been sitting on that since one o'clock. Five hours.
I was up that lane before the sentence was finished. They were redone before five, with Oopsy helping and never once mentioning whose fault they were.
Afterwards I went and helped Truly redo the three bridge hooks that had been done through the wire instead of the loop, and I did not once say anything about whose fault it was, because I had just spent an hour finding out how that feels from the inside.
"Doesn't it get easier?" I asked.
"No," said Truly. "It gets lighter. Afterwards. Not before."
"I did the bridge hooks wrong," I said. "This morning. Three of them. They'll hold till about eight and then they'll open."
Four seconds. I had spent five hours on it and the saying of it took four seconds.
"Right," said Chatty, and was gone up the lane before I had finished breathing out.
They were redone before five. Oopsy came and helped and did not once say anything about whose fault it was, which I understood better later when I heard what sort of afternoon Oopsy had been having.
