Chapter 9: The Fifth

On the fifth of November, I sold a snow shovel to a man who didn't need one, just to have something to do with my hands.

It was the first real cold of the year.

The bell on the door rang every few minutes with customers who wanted to look at me.

They bought batteries and light bulbs and looked at me over the counter.

Bernie put a sign on the paint aisle that said CLOSED FOR INVENTORY.

She had never closed the paint aisle in her life.

"Bernie."

"I'm counting."

"You're sitting on a bucket with your phone in your hand."

"I'm counting very patiently."

By two o'clock my father had come in on his walker and taken the stool by the key machine, and neither of them would leave.

"You've got a customer," I said to him.

"Don't see one."

"Dad."

"Susie, I'm sixty-six. If I want to watch the front door for an hour, I'm going to watch it."

I had the yellow legal pad folded in my apron pocket.

It had taken me eight days.

I had written four pages and torn up three.

I touched the folded edge of it every few minutes.

At ten after three, the bell rang.

Nobody in the store moved.

Gabe stood in the doorway in a dark jacket and a tie.

I had never seen him in a tie except at weddings, and once at a funeral.

The tie was blue, and crooked.

He closed the door slowly behind him.

He looked at my father, and at Bernie on her bucket, and at me.

"Afternoon," he said.

"Afternoon," my father said.

"I was at the courthouse."

"We know," said Bernie.

He swallowed.

"The judge signed at one-fifteen. It took about four minutes."

Nobody said anything.

The old radio behind the counter was playing a polka at low volume.

"I want to say before anything else," Gabe said, "that I'm not here to ask for anything."

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