Chapter 24: Landry's Table

On Monday morning I clocked in at six.

I wore a red Landry's apron and carried a duffel bag with a McNeese parking pass in the front pocket.

My first class was at one.

My hand had healed to a pink shiny patch across the palm.

I had barely slept after the red label.

The grocery complaint was gone, withdrawn by the night nurse's sworn statement, and the tripled order would ship Friday.

Odette wanted the first truck to carry my name on every jar.

I had stared at GINNY'S FIRE until two in the morning.

At five I told her yes.

Donald had left a blue box on the front step before dawn.

It was a Christmas-lights box, soft at the corners, with a note on top in his careful insurance-agent handwriting.

"It was under the sink. I found it when I cleaned out the house. I'm sorry I never looked. Dad."

I carried it through the plant on my hip.

At noon the crew filed into the break room.

It was the long low room with the cot in the corner and the table down the middle.

Thirty people sat on benches on both sides.

The night shift stayed over to eat.

Luke stood at the stove with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

He had burned his wrist again on a pan, and he was grinning about it.

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