The Bouquet My Sister Took

Monday

I wish I could say that Monday brought an apology. It did not. It brought a cashier’s check.

Arlo called me at nine in the morning. He said Marge had come to the credit union at opening, in the same navy dress, and had written a check to the Wheels for Trina account for eleven thousand one hundred dollars. He said the loan officer had called him to confirm, because by then it was a story, and she had not wanted to touch it without a witness. He said Marge had not said a word, not to the loan officer, not to the teller, and had walked out with her sunglasses on.

By Tuesday the Chamber’s finance committee had asked for her books. By Wednesday they had found what Arlo had suspected. The three thousand one hundred she had sent in November was real. The rest of the Harvest Supper money had been moved into the Chamber’s operating account, and from the operating account, over the next ten months, into a line item called Community Outreach. The line item paid for four hundred yard signs, two rounds of mailers, and a billboard on Highway 14. The billboard said Ottawa Bend Takes Care Of Its Own.

It was our intersection. I drive past it twice a day.

On Thursday, Marge withdrew from the race. Her name was already printed on the ballots, so it stayed there, and she got fewer votes than I thought she would, though more than she deserved. The Chamber asked for her resignation as treasurer. The church council voted not to renew her on the rummage committee. These are small things, in a town this size, and they are also everything. In Ottawa Bend, the worst thing that can happen to you is that people politely stop expecting you to show up.