Chapter 23: What He Owes

It took Dad forty minutes to fix the radiator.

He lay on the kitchen floor with his head under the window.

He had a wrench in one hand and a flashlight in his teeth.

Mom stood over him with her arms folded and watched every move.

"You're going to let the air out of the valve first," she said.

"Signe, I do this for a living."

"I know. I'm checking."

"There." He sat up and the pipe gave one soft hiss and stopped. "It was just air in the line. It's been knocking for years, hasn't it?"

"Since March."

"You never called anyone."

"I called the landlord. He sent me a bucket."

Dad looked at the radiator, and he looked at the bucket.

He didn't say anything.

He wiped his hands on a rag and stood up.

He turned to me where I sat at the table with a bowl of cereal.

"Maddy. I have something for you."

"Is it a check?"

He blinked.

"It's, yes. It is a check."

"Is it a big check?"

"It's the biggest one I've ever written."

I put down my spoon.

"Show Mom," I said.

He turned and held out an envelope.

Mom wiped her hands on a dish towel and took it.

She opened it and looked at the number for a long time.

Then she took the pencil from behind her ear and began to do arithmetic on the back of an electric bill.

"Where did this come from?" she said.

"I sold my shares in the company. To my foreman. He's been wanting them for years."

"All of them?"

"Every one."

"What about the house on Linden Drive?"

"It's my mother's house. I moved out of it on Friday." He rubbed his neck. "I'm renting a room over the shop."

"Craig."

"I know."

"You're sleeping over a heating shop."

"It's warm," he said, and for the first time in two lives I heard him make a joke at his own expense.

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