My Father's Best Friend Fixed My Roof, Then Never Left My Kitchen novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Aisle Seven

I didn't ask about the yellow pad, and he didn't explain it.

He drove me home at midnight with his hand on my knee.

In the driveway he kissed me once and said, "Daylight tomorrow."

I didn't sleep.

At nine the next morning I walked into Drabik Hardware with a rusted faucet washer in my coat pocket.

I hadn't needed a washer in my life.

The store smelled of rope and fertilizer and burnt coffee.

A bell jingled over the door, and six old men at the coffee counter turned on their stools to see who it was.

"That's Frank's girl," one of them said.

"Carly," said another, and took off his seed cap.

"Sorry about your dad, honey," a third said. "Fine man."

"Thank you," I said, and I meant it, and it still hurt every time.

"Thursday liars," Milan had told me once, years ago, when I was home for the Fourth.

They had a sign over their stools that said NO FISH STORIES BEFORE NOON.

The man in the seed cap was telling one anyway, about a pike as long as his arm.

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