I Walked Into My Son's Father's Engagement Party With Our Four-Year-Old, and His Mother Wasn't Surprised novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The Store
At seven on Monday morning, Nolte Hardware and Supply smelled like sawdust, burnt coffee and WD-40.
Nine contractors stood in a line at the counter in work boots and reflective vests, holding paper cups.
They went quiet when Kent came through the door.
Everybody in Warren County had heard how he'd been fired.
Rhonda walked in behind him with her thermos.
I stayed at the end of the paint aisle with my own cup, where I could see his face.
Becca stood behind the register in a canvas apron.
She'd tied her hair up in a bandanna, and her father's reading glasses hung on a cord around her neck.
"Morning, Kent," she said, as if this were any Monday.
Kent took the folded letter out of his shirt pocket and laid it on the counter.
"I appreciate it," he said. "I'm not taking the job."
A man in a Carhartt jacket let out a long whistle.
"Dad," Becca called toward the back, not loudly. "He's here."
The office door opened.
Her father came out in suspenders, a large, flushed man who was used to being the one at the head of the table.
"Kent," he said. "Son."
"Sir."
"Now, I was told some things about you."
"By who?"
The man looked at the line of contractors.
He looked at his daughter.
I watched him weigh the whole room, and then I watched him decide.
"By Joyce Irwin," he said. "She called me at noon on a Sunday and told me you'd been skimming the till. For months."
Becca's mouth went flat.
"She told you that," Kent said.
"She did."
"Did you check?"
"No." He rubbed the back of his neck. "She sat on the committee when my wife had her surgery. She brought casseroles for a month. I took her word because she'd been decent to us, and I fired a man by phone for it."
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