Chapter 24: One Pen

I read the lease on Sunday night, all forty pages, at the kitchen table in the flat above the shop.

I read it with a pencil, and the baby asleep in the crook of my other arm.

On Monday morning, before opening, I carried it downstairs.

Table nine was set for four, with the sun already on it.

Otis had put out a plate of lemon cookies.

Libby sat with her boots on the next chair and her coffee in both hands.

The old lawyer sat opposite her with his umbrella across his knees.

He had two folders with him.

One was blue, and one was black, and both had gold seals.

"Good morning, Ms. Hensley," he said.

"I have the chair's papers for Stroud Capital, which the board has voted to confirm. The firm would like your signature."

"Of course it would."

"And Mr. Draper has the lease."

"I have the lease," Otis said.

He didn't sit.

He stood beside the table with his hands in his apron pockets.

He was trying very hard to look like a man with nothing riding on a piece of paper.

I laid the baby in the crook of Libby's arm, and Libby took her without a word.

"Pen," I said.

Otis took one from the pocket of his apron and set it on the table.

It was a black pen, an ordinary one, with a chewed cap.

I knew it.

"That's the pen I signed the divorce with," I said.

"I kept it."

"Why?"

"I thought you might want to use it on something better."

His mouth moved at one corner.

"It's a good pen."

I picked it up.

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