The Summer of Riley

There were 21 squares on the calendar, one for every day Riley had left. I X-ed out the first one in red. One day used up, twenty to go. And I tried hard not to look at the last red square, not to think what it meant. All day long I'd tried not to see Riley's face on our flyers. I'd tried to make this a sort of game, a challenge, and not remember what the reward would be or what would happen if we lost...Did Ellis Porter have a calendar too and was he staring at it too and planning as I was planning? A life for a life. A dog for his cat. It didn't matter to him wihch dog. Riley would do fine.