The Daughter They Abandoned Is the Doctor They Can't Reach novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Closing Time

Her father stands in the bookstore and tells the crossword club she can't be trusted with a till; her boss Mabel throws him out and offers a cot, and Ingrid goes home to find her room given to Faye and a mattress already made in the basement.

On Wednesday evening Kroll's Books was full of people who had come for the hot cider.

Mabel hosted a crossword club in the back every week, six regulars with pencils and strong opinions.

I was behind the register counting the till when the bell on the door rang.

My father came in with his coat buttoned to the neck.

"Good evening," he said to the room, and smiled at all of it.

Mabel looked up from the crossword table and took her red glasses off.

"Dennis Sandvik," she said. "You're Ingrid's father. You've never once come in."

"I'm sorry to do this in public," my father said, in the voice that made people lean toward him. "But I feel I owe you the truth, since she works for you."

I put the cash drawer down.

"My daughter has had some trouble with honesty about money," he said. "She's a good girl, and she's going through a lot. But I wouldn't leave her alone with a till."

The pencils stopped.

Six faces turned toward me.

My ears went hot, and I stood up straight and kept my hands where everyone could see them.

"Is that right," Mabel said.

She stood, slowly, and walked to the register.

"What kind of trouble, exactly?" she asked. "Name it."

"Mabel, I'd rather not go into details."

"I'll bet you wouldn't."

She turned to the room.

"This girl has counted my drawer to the penny every night since August," she said. "Last month a man overpaid me forty dollars, and she chased him down the street to give it back. That was Ingrid. Anybody here ever see her take a dime?"

"No," said the man in the tweed cap.

"Never," said the woman beside him.

Somebody at the back said, "Sit down, Dennis, you're embarrassing yourself."

My father's smile stayed where it was, but his eyes went flat.

"I'm only trying to protect your business."

"My business is a hundred and four years old and has survived worse than you," Mabel said. "You've said your piece in front of my customers. Now the door is behind you."

He looked at me.

I looked back and said nothing.

He went out, and the bell rang after him.

The room stayed quiet for a second, and then the man in the tweed cap cleared his throat and went back to seven down.

Mabel didn't go back to her chair.

She came around the counter and put one dry hand on my shoulder.

"I'm closing at eight," she said. "There's a cot upstairs, a hot plate and a window that sticks. You don't have to tell me why you need it."

"Thank you," I said, and my voice wobbled for the first time that week. "Not yet. Let me get through tomorrow."

"Why tomorrow?"

"Because I want to leave while they're all watching."

Mabel studied me over the top of her glasses.

"Your bag will be here if you need it," she said. "Go on."

I took the bus home.

The porch light was on, and the house smelled like sage and butter.

Aunts and cousins had begun arriving for the holiday, and their coats were piled on the bench in the hall.

I went upstairs to my room.

The door stood open.

My bed had been stripped, and my posters were rolled in the corner.

Faye's easel stood at my window, in the good light.

My clothes were folded in two cardboard boxes at the foot of the stairs, with my school books stacked on top.

I carried one box down to the basement.

Someone had already put a single mattress on the floor beside the water heater.

It had a sheet on it, and a pillow, and a folded blanket.

They had made the bed before I came home.

Faye was waiting on the basement steps, wearing paint-stained cuffs and holding the other box against her chest.

"I told them you should keep your room," she said. "I did. Uncle Dennis said it was already decided."

"I know."

"I can sleep down here instead."

"Faye."

She stopped.

"Don't," I said. "You didn't ask for any of it. I know."

I did not know that, but she looked so tired that I said it anyway.

My mother came to the top of the stairs with a dish towel over her shoulder.

"There you are, honey," she said brightly. "Don't stand around frowning. Faye needs the light for her portfolio, and you're hardly ever in your room."

"Mom, that's my room."

"It's a room," my mother said. "You'll hardly notice."

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