Chapter 22: Danner & Daughter

Claire's POV

The new sign for Danner Hardware arrived on Monday in a crate the size of a door.

My father looked at it with deep suspicion.

"I didn't order a sign."

"I did," I said.

"What does it say?"

"Open it."

Jo and I pried off the lid.

The board inside was painted forest green with cream letters, hand-lettered, and it said DANNER & DAUGHTER HARDWARE, EST. 1994.

My father read it twice.

He took off his glasses, wiped them on his flannel, and put them back on to read it again.

"Thirty-one years," he said, "and you put your name on my shop."

"It's our shop, Dad. You taught me to cut a key when I was eight."

"You were bad at it."

"I was terrible. I'm still terrible. It's my name anyway."

He made a gruff sound and turned away to rearrange a bin of washers that did not need rearranging.

Jo, who was crying, said, "I'm not crying."

"Nobody said anything."

"I'm saying it first so you can't."

At ten o'clock Nathaniel came up the street with a ladder over his shoulder.

He wore jeans, which I had never seen.

They suited him alarmingly.

"I was told there was a job," he said.

"Not a job. A favor. We need the old sign down and the new one up."

"I can do that."

"Can you?" said my father, from the doorway.

"I have a hammer, sir."

"It's a screwdriver job. Hammer would split the board." My father looked him up and down. "Ladder's wobbly on the left."

"I'll mind it."

"You'll hold it," my father said. "Claire goes up."

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