Denar’s sister spoke about his boots.
Not the morning he died, not the painted bar on the boat or the gun he had faced. She told the people gathered beneath the clinic’s outer shade that he had spent two months refusing to replace a pair everyone could hear coming down the stair.
“He said the sound saved him knocking.”
A few people laughed, then fell quiet again.
Iven stood beside Tavin near the back. Otha had tied Low Lantern in the sheltered berth until the short memorial ended. The clinic’s next turn had not been canceled; another crew held the receiving frame while the people who had known Denar took their own time to stand together.
His duty record and household support were settled on the public account. That did not finish what his sister had lost. It meant the practical part would not be left for her to beg from strangers while she tried to remember a man without making him only the way he died.
She put his old boots beneath the small name board.
Iven listened until the gathering ended, then helped carry the benches back under cover. Nobody asked him for a speech. He was glad to do something with his hands that did not place him at the center of another person’s grief.
