Genoa said to Bonnie, as she handed up another Chinese lantern to be hung from one of the many wires crisscrossing her side yard. Bonnie affixed the bright orange lantern in its proper place and smiled wryly as she got down from her stepstool and moved it ahead a few feet. Genoa had put all her guests to work; Susan and Lizbeth were placing wire hoops in the grass for croquet, while Eli and Seth carried lawn chairs and tables of various lengths into the yard. “I wouldn’t worry, Genoa,” Bonnie said, climbing back onto her stool, taking another paper lantern from her friend’s outstretched hands and attaching it to the wire. “You know what they say. ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.’” Genoa assessed the crimson sunset raging in the western sky with caution. “We are not sailors,” she said. Pensively she added, “The river is high, Bonnie, even for this time of year.” Everyone, Bonnie suspected, secretly worried about the rising waters of the Columbia. If the sunny spell was to continue, melting last winter’s heavy snows in the mountains of Canada, and then was followed by another hard rain … The determined Bonnie shook off the now familiar sense of foreboding that came over her whenever the state of the river was mentioned.
