Chapter 23: Opening Night

I did not answer the bride.

I spent two weeks hanging shelves instead, which is what I do when a sentence is too big.

On the Friday before Christmas, Bell & Daughters Hardware opened its doors for the first time in two years.

The sign was back over the entrance, in fresh yellow.

Lydia's thumbprint was still in the corner of the B, and I refused to fix it.

June had strung white lights across the window.

The butcher had sent a ham.

By six o'clock the street was in my store, standing among the paint cans with paper cups of cider.

My father's coat hung on its hook behind the register.

I had washed it once, and it still smelled of machine oil, which I counted as a miracle.

"You're doing the face," June said, passing me with a tray of rolls.

"What face?"

"The ledger face. The one where you've got a feeling and you're trying to file it."

"It's a very good feeling."

"I know. Put it on the left."

At seven, the door opened and let in a gust of snow and a hush.

Cain Rourke stood on the mat.

He wore the dark coat and no hat, and he carried nothing.

He had left the car at the corner and walked the last block in the cold.

The whole store stopped talking.

I saw an old man put down his cider.

I saw the florist take a half step behind a display of garden hoses.

"Don't," I said, loudly, to nobody in particular. "He's a customer."

"I'm a customer," Cain agreed.

Nobody moved.

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