The Empty Seat That Cost Everything

What I Actually Decided

I did go back to the store, eventually, about six weeks after the wedding, once the ankle claim had cleared and the feed order had gone out on the tightened terms and my father had sat across from me at his own kitchen table, which is not something he does easily, to ask me what it would take for me to come back.

I did not ask for an apology as a condition, mostly because I had already had one, twice, once from my mother on the phone in a voice I had not heard her use with me since I was small, and once from my father in person, plainly, without excuses attached to it.

I asked for a salary, in writing, set to what a bookkeeper with my hours actually earns in this county, which Bradley, of all people, helped me look up, since his agency works with half the small businesses around here and he knew the going rate cold. I asked for my name to come off the personal guarantee on the line of credit once the store’s own credit had recovered enough to requalify on its own, which my father agreed to start immediately, out of an urgency I had never once seen in him before. I asked that the insurance renewal notice, going forward, come addressed to the business and get opened by whoever is working the counter that day, not filed under things my father does not look at.

I did not ask Velma for anything, because I did not know yet what I wanted from her, and I have learned the hard way that asking before you know costs you the asking.