The Watch From the Ones at Home

“She said to ask you about a furnace,” I said. “January of 1998.”

He was quiet. Then he said, “That was the Abrams house?”

“You did not even know whose house it was?”

“The church called and gave me an address. It was dark. A lady in a coat.” He shook his head slowly. “I knew she was a widow. I did not put it together. Twenty-eight years I have been walking past that store.”

That was when the headlights swung across the kitchen window.

A truck door shut. Heavy boots came up the back steps, and somebody knocked on the storm door with the side of his fist, the way men do who have never used a doorbell in their lives.

It was Tiny. He filled the whole door. He had his cap in one hand and a big envelope in the other, and he would not quite look at me.

“Brenda Kay. Is he up?”

“He is at the table. Come in out of the cold.”

He came in and stood on the mat. He nodded at Dennis. Dennis nodded at him. Nineteen years those two worked within thirty feet of each other, and that is how they say hello.

“I heard about Saturday,” Tiny said.

“It was nothing,” Dennis said.

“It was not nothing, and do not tell me it was.” He held out the envelope. “This is from the floor. All three shifts. I did not put anybody up to anything. I told them what happened and held out a pen.”

Dennis took the card out. I saw the trout on the front and I nearly laughed, and then he opened it and I did not feel like laughing anymore.

There was not a white space left in it. Names ran up the sides and around the corners and across the printed verse. Forty-one of them.

Dennis put his glasses back on. He read every one. He read some of them out loud, not to us, just under his breath.

“Kevin Shoup. ‘You taught me everything I know and I still have all ten fingers.'” He stopped. “Ray Mullins. ‘Line 4 has not run right since you left.’ Dale. Big Dale and Little Dale both.” He turned the card. “‘You covered my shift the week my boy was born. Marcus.’ I do not even remember doing that.”

“He does,” Tiny said.

Then Tiny reached in his coat and took out a bank envelope, thick, soft with small bills, and set it on the table.

“That is two hundred and five dollars. Five from every man on that card. It is for a watch. They want you to have a watch from the floor, and they want it to be a good one.”

Dennis looked at the envelope. Then he pushed his shirt cuff back and held out his wrist.

Tiny bent down. He looked at the watch a good while.

“Well,” he said. “Somebody beat us to it.”

“She did,” Dennis said. “About twenty minutes ago.”

“Show him the back,” I said.

Dennis took it off and handed it over. Tiny held it up toward the ceiling light and squinted. His lips moved. Then he handed it back, very carefully, and cleared his throat, and found something to look at on the refrigerator.

“That is about right,” he said. “Yes, ma’am. That is about exactly right.”

“I cannot take that money, Tiny,” Dennis said.

“It is not mine to take back.”