Chapter 24: Crooked on Its Nail

On Monday evening I walked into Malcolm's shop with a hammer, a nail, and a cardboard box under my arm.

He was at the bench, sanding a drawer front, with the radio on low.

He looked up, and his whole face changed, which still startled me every time.

"You said you'd tell me the question later," he said.

"It's later."

"Is that the box?"

"It's the box."

I set it on the bench and lifted the lid, and the antlers lay in their tissue paper with the stain on one tine.

Malcolm looked at them for a long moment.

"Where do you want them?"

"Over the front door. On the inside."

"So I see them every time I leave."

"So you see them every time I come in," I said.

He took the hammer from me, because he was tall enough to reach the beam, and I held the nail where I wanted it.

He drove it in with two blows.

I hung the antlers on it by their elastic, and they swayed once and settled, a little crooked.

"Straighten them," Malcolm said.

"No."

"They're crooked."

"They're supposed to be."

He stepped back and looked.

He was a man who made cabinets for a living, standing under a pair of felt antlers, with sawdust in his beard.

I started to laugh, and he started, and for a minute neither of us could stop.

"Poppy's going to want a photo," he said.

"Poppy's already asked for the rights."

When we had quieted I took an envelope out of my bag and put it on the bench.

He read the front.

It said Dot's Kitchen, in my handwriting, with a number underneath.

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