Chapter 24: The Check

On Sunday morning Knox hung the check on the wall of the ferry office.

It took him four tries to make it straight.

It sat in a plain black frame, between the tide table and the laminated deck plan.

He used a level.

I stood behind him with a coffee and gave him no advice, which I would like entered in the record.

"A quarter inch to the left," I said.

"That was advice."

"That was a correction."

He moved it a quarter inch, and the check hung there, pale blue paper in my own handwriting.

It was made out to Knox Lacroix for one thousand dollars.

On the memo line I had written: Hold fee. Number Four.

Across the back was the bank stamp that said it had been paid.

"It cleared in two days," Knox said. "It took me weeks to put it in the bank."

"You were being careful."

"I was being stubborn."

"It's the job," I said.

The office door opened, and Alana came in with a tray of coffees.

She wore no headset.

Her hair was pulled back in a plain ponytail, and she looked tired, and a little lighter.

She had come back to work on Friday, for the first time since the dinner.

At the door she had asked Knox what she should do, and he had told her to answer the phone and nothing else.

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