Doug thanked him and stepped inside the gym. He and Tritia made their way through the crowd by the door and stood near the entrance to the boys’ locker room. All four walls of bleachers had been brought down, and three of them were nearly full. There would not be enough space in here for everyone, he realized. Many people would just have to stand or sit on the floor.

He glanced around, trying to gauge the mood of the crowd. People seemed tentative, hesitant with one another. Awkward. Grudges had been formed and fanned through the mails, words of hate had been received and responded to, acquaintanceships had been reforged and realigned on the basis of faulty information, misdirected emotions, lies. Everyone knew that now. Everyone realized that the hate mail they’d been receiving, all of the gossiping innuendo, had not been sent by their neighboring townspeople but had been forced upon them by the mailman.

Still, feelings formed during that troubling period could not be instantly discarded, and there was tension among many members of the crowd. Arguments erupted. A small shoving match started in the stands, but was quickly stopped by a policeman.

And still people continued to arrive. People who had never before attended any civic function, people whose faces Doug did not even recognize, took seats on the bleachers. There were lone men in dusty hats and cowboy boots, impeccably dressed old couples, trendy young newlyweds, average families with children.

By eight o’clock, the appointed time, the gym was full, and Doug felt a little overwhelmed when he saw the size of the crowd. It was not speaking before so many people that daunted him—he was a teacher and was used to speaking in front of groups—it was taking the responsibility of leading so many individuals, of making the decisions for so many people.

He saw in the packed bleachers the faces of school-board members, city-council members, policemen, the fire chief: people elected or appointed to positions of power. These men and women, supposedly trained to deal with public crises, did not know what to do in this situation and were looking to him for answers. The thought was intimidating, made even more so by the looks of worry and hope he saw on the faces of people he didn’t even know, by the frightened murmurs of adults and the crying whimpers of children.

The room felt hot, the walls claustrophobically close, the air filled with the smell of old and new sweat. Tritia squeezed his hand, a gesture of faith and support that more than anything else gave him the strength to stride across the polished wood floor to the center of the gym.