Chapter 12: The Hardware Store Safe

The hardware store sat on a corner of Main Street in Findlay.

Its green awning had gone grey, and a For Lease sign hung in the window.

It had been closed for six years.

I had never been inside it without June behind the counter.

The key from her braid turned the lock at the first try.

Emmett came in behind me with a flashlight, and the door swung shut on the cold.

"Careful," he said. "There's glass on the floor."

"There's always glass on the floor," I said. "She swept every night and it never helped."

The shelves still held the dead stock, rows of hinges and washers in cardboard boxes gone soft with damp.

I walked down the third aisle and stopped.

"Nails," I said.

"Does this one hold something?"

"No. She told you which aisle."

He lifted the flashlight and read the label overhead. It said NAILS, in her neat capitals.

His mouth moved. He put a hand on my back, lightly, and neither of us mentioned it.

The safe was behind the register, under a piece of plywood and a calendar from six years ago.

It was small and green and older than I was.

The brass key fit that, too.

"Jessamine," Emmett said, "do you want me to leave?"

"Stay."

The door opened with a groan.

There was a thick cream envelope and a deed in a plastic sleeve.

There was also a tin of butterscotch candies, which was so exactly June that I laughed and couldn't stop.

My name was on the envelope, in her handwriting, from before her hands began to shake.