Chapter 23: Her Way

My father found me on the back stairs on Friday at four, sitting with a grey cardigan in my lap.

"You're going to wear a hole in it," he said.

"It's the only thing I've got that's older than the bar."

He sat down two steps below me with a grunt.

From his apron pocket he took a small square of tissue paper, folded many times, and put it in my hand.

I opened it.

It was a thin gold ring with one tiny stone, scratched at the edges.

"Your mother's," my father said. "I took it off her finger myself, the last night. I told myself I'd save it for when you needed it."

"Dad."

"I don't know if you need it." He rubbed his eyes.

"I think you've been needing something for four years. I think it's walking around my bar in a black shirt, carrying trays."

I laughed. It came out wet.

"He's good with the trays," I said.

"He's good at everything he tries. He tries too hard." My father stood, one hand on the rail. "Do it your way, honey. Nobody's ever stopped you."

At eleven that night Flanagan's was empty.

Lucy had flipped the sign, wiped down the taps and gone home with a look on her face that I'd decided not to read.

Malachi stood behind the bar, drying glasses with a towel.

He had worked my taps for three days.

Nobody had asked him to. He said it kept his hands busy.

I turned the sign in the window, and I locked the front door.

Then I went to the switch panel by the register and pushed every switch.

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