Emmitt survived that floor because he was certain of being seen.

And come April, they were going to take away everyone’s certainty of being seen and mail them a key to a box at the highway instead.

Chapter 8 — The Spreadsheet’s Blind Spot

Emmitt was going to be all right — a new hip, a hard few months, but all right — and while he was healing I did a lot of thinking, in the truck, on the long gravel stretches, about the blind spot.

Because here is what the spreadsheet cannot see.

If Emmitt Wilkes had died on that kitchen floor — and another few hours of that cold and he might have — it would not have shown up anywhere as a cost of closing Rural Route Four.