Chapter 22: The Sign

Leona's POV

I had the check in both hands when he opened the door.

It was written on the family's heavy cream paper, in my grandmother's gold pen, for one year of the clinic's rent, light and payroll.

"I thought it should be somewhere safe," I said.

"This is a free clinic. The safe is a coffee can."

"Then I came to hand it to the coffee can."

Ansel looked at me, and at the check, and at the dress I had not taken off.

"You stayed through dessert," he said.

"It was lemon."

"I know. You thought about it for forty minutes."

I pinned the check to the corkboard, next to the budget sheet, with a red thumbtack.

He stood behind me and put his chin on my shoulder, and we looked at it together.

Neither of us said anything, which was the best conversation we'd had all week.

The sign went up at ten the next morning.

A man on a ladder hung it over the clinic door while a small crowd stood on the pavement with coffee.

My grandmother had come in a navy suit and pearls, with her cane planted on the pavement.

Two reporters and the night nurse stood on the curb.

A girl of about seven held her mother's hand and stared at the ladder.

The sign was gold on black, in letters a foot high.

It read THACKERAY NIGHT CLINIC.

"No," Ansel said, beside me.

"I beg your pardon?" said Margaret.

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