The Woman Who Only Did the Books

“Original goes in the left-hand vise, against the guide. Blank goes in the right, against the cutter. Bring up your gauge and seat the both of them on the shoulder, so they start even. Now flip the gauge down out of the way or you’ll cut the gauge, and I’ll tell you now, everybody cuts the gauge once.”

“What do I copy?”

He held out his hand. “Yours.”

I gave him my ring with the brass 3 on it. He picked a blank off the board and clamped it up.

“Cut one of your own,” he said. “Then you’ll know by tomorrow morning whether you’re any good.”

The machine sang. I ran the carriage across slow, the way he showed me, and touched the new key to the wire wheel to take the burrs off. It came out warm. I put it in the apron pocket with the want list.

The next morning I locked the front door from the outside, in the dark, and opened it again with the key I had made.

It turned easier than the old one.

Hannah came home that Friday night and worked Saturday beside me in one of her father’s old store sweatshirts. She was faster on the register than I was by nine o’clock. Around ten I found her standing dead still in the fastener aisle with her fingers on one of the bin labels.

“These are Dad’s,” she said. “That’s his five. He always made his fives like an S.”

She wiped her face on her sleeve. “Mom, I could take a semester off. I could be here.”

“You could not. I’ve got Ozzie. And I’ve got your uncle, when he comes around.”

“He told you to leave.”

“He did,” I said. “He was wrong, and he’s hurting, and both of those are true at once. You’re going back to Marshall on Sunday. You can have Saturdays.”

She took Saturdays. She has them still.

Gary, in those weeks, did his work and went home. He came in at eight, or a quarter past, through the alley, and every morning I had already been open an hour, and neither of us said one thing about it.

But the farmers noticed. Farmers notice what time a door opens the way other people notice the weather.

It came to a head the last Saturday of October.

We had rain forecast for Sunday night, a real one, two inches. I got to the store at half past six, and there was already a pickup at the curb with its lights on and Walt Jensen sitting in it.

Walt is past seventy and farms two sections east of town with his son. He was out of the truck before I had my key in the door.

“Jan, I need a bearing and I needed it ten minutes ago. Is Gary in?”

“No.”

“Ozzie?”

“Not till a quarter to. Come in out of the wind, Walt. What bearing?”

“Off the grain cart. It went out at eleven last night. I’ve had the boy hauling with the truck alone ever since, and we’re losing an hour in every three.” He had the old one in a shop rag, and he unwrapped it on my counter, a ruined thing, blue from the heat with the seal gone. “I can’t read the number. It’s burned off.”

I did not need the number.

“It’s a 6207,” I said. “Sealed both sides. You bought one two years ago, the second week of November, for the same cart. The other side, I’d guess.”

Walt stared at me.

“You bought a pair of tank heaters the same day,” I said. “It’s all on one ticket.”