They were in the front row because of a box I ticked eleven years earlier.

Four hundred and nine names took forty minutes.

When they called Silas he walked up the plywood steps and shook Vance’s hand and took the rolled paper with the gold ribbon on it, and the clapping was steady and normal and about four seconds long.

And then instead of going down the side ramp with the rest of them he walked to the front row.

I did not know he was going to do that.