My Husband Kept Sending Packages to Ex, So I Filed for Divorce novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Black Friday

Keith calls the $38,400 a loan for Shana's sick daughter, Norma sets a December 15 deadline for the route, and Mitch announces he's buying it with cash on Monday.

I took the phone out to my parents' driveway so the house wouldn't hear.

It was cold enough to see my breath.

Keith picked up on the first ring.

"Bec. Thank God. Are you coming home?"

"Where's the route fund, Keith?"

He breathed out through his nose, the way he does when a claim comes back denied.

"I was going to tell you this weekend."

"It's Thanksgiving. This is the weekend."

"It's a loan," he said. "Her daughter needs surgery. Her heart. The insurance won't cover all of it."

"Shana has a daughter?"

"She's five. Shana doesn't talk about her much. It's hard for her."

I had climbed to 3B almost every weekday for a year.

I had never seen a scooter on that landing.

I had never seen a booster seat, a chalk drawing, one pink sneaker on that gold mat.

"You gave her thirty-eight thousand four hundred dollars."

"She'll pay it back by spring. She swore on the kid."

"Half of that was mine."

"It was ours," he said. "And it was just sitting there."

"It wasn't sitting. It was buying my route."

"Norma will give you an extension. She loves you."

Behind me, the porch light came on.

My father stood in the doorway in his socks, holding my coat.

"I'm hanging up now," I told Keith.

"Bec, wait. Where am I supposed to sleep tonight?"

"Ask the little one."

I hung up.

My father came down the steps and put the coat over my shoulders.

He didn't ask a single thing.

He just stood there with me until my teeth stopped chattering.

Black Friday at the depot starts at five in the morning.

The lot off Springboro Pike was already a field of brown vans with their engines running.

I'd slept three hours in my old bed under a poster of a band I don't even like anymore.

I was in yesterday's jeans and my brown jacket, the only piece of uniform I had with me.

Van 22 is the newest van on the lot.

It has heated seats, a sliding door that doesn't stick, and a radio that gets more than one station.

The rule is first one in gets it.

Mitch Wendt was sitting in the driver's seat eating a breakfast burrito.

He rolled the window down.

"Morning, Hoyle. You look like a raccoon slept on your face."

"Get out of my van."

"It's Norma's van. I was here at four-forty."

"Since when do you get here at four-forty?"

"Since the radio said nineteen degrees on Route 14 today." He took a big bite and talked through it. "Your route. Not mine. Mine's got sunshine."

"They're the same sky, Mitch. The routes touch."

"Mine's a happier sky. Ask anybody."

He has been like this for six years.

He talks to every dog on Route 15 by name and sings in the van with the windows down.

He used to fix tanks in the Army, and he never lets anyone forget that he can fix anything with wheels.

The stops-per-hour board hangs by the dock door.

Last week it said HOYLE 31.6 and WENDT 31.4.

Somebody had drawn a little sad face next to his name in my handwriting.

Somebody had drawn a mustache on my name in his.

"Somebody vandalized the board," Mitch said.

"Somebody's at 31.4."

He grinned and handed me the other half of his burrito.

I was starving, so I took it.

Norma Gerber was at the dock door with a sheet pan of cinnamon rolls and her red fleece vest zipped to her chin.

She owns the contract for Routes 14 and 15.

Her late husband built it, and she's run it alone for twelve years.

"Becca," she said. "You look like death on a cracker. Eat two."

"Can I talk to you? Alone?"

She looked at my face and handed the sheet pan to the nearest driver.

We went behind the parts cage.

I told her about the shopping app and the forty-one orders.

I told her about the robe and the mixer and the pie plate.

Then I showed her the bank app.

$0.00.

Norma took her reading glasses off the beaded chain and put them on.

She read the memo line.

"For the little one," she said. "Well, heck and Jehoshaphat."

"I'll find it. I'll get it back."

"Honey, you know I love you."

"I know."

"The lawyer put the fifteenth on the paper. Thirty-eight thousand by December fifteen, and I carry the other half over three years like we said. After that I'm selling to whoever walks in with money, because I'm sixty-eight and my knees are done."

"I know, Norma."

She squeezed my arm hard enough to hurt.

"Then go find it."

When we came out from behind the cage, Mitch was standing by the board with his hands in his pockets.

He wasn't smiling for once.

He'd heard every word.

He looked at me, then at Norma.

"Norma," he said. "If Hoyle's out, I'm in. Both routes, same terms."

"Mitch," Norma said.

"I've got thirty-eight thousand in the bank. I'll put a cashier's check on your kitchen table Monday."

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