The Shoes in the Parking Lot
But Janelle’s hand stayed on my arm a beat longer than it needed to. After the service she walked a covered casserole dish out to my car, chicken and rice, still warm through the towel, and said only, “Are you eating, Elva? You send that dish back when you’re done, no hurry.” I told her I was fine. She looked at the floor, where my feet were, and let me have that.
I ate a real supper that night, the first one since the funeral, at the kitchen table with the radio on low. I ate half the dish and washed the plate twice.
I scrubbed those sneakers with a toothbrush and dish soap, and set them in the sun on the back step to dry, and I stood there looking at a pair of gray sneakers with a hole in the left toe and thinking, what do you give a boy who has given you his shoes.
It had to be money, though I knew that was the wrong word for it. A boy who helps his mother with the rent does not need a pie. But he would not take charity. I had seen his face when he said six-forty. He had said it to the road, not to me. That was a proud boy.
In the second drawer of Clyde’s desk, under the tax folders and the freezer warranty, there was a box of thank-you cards. He had bought them at the Dollar General after his mother passed, because he believed that somebody who brings a casserole ought to get a note. There were thirty in the box, each with a red cardinal on a snowy branch. He had used six. Twenty-four were left.
I took out a card and sat with the pen over it a long time. I wrote:
Dear Tyler, Thank you for the shoes and the candy bar and the ten minutes. I will not forget it. Elva Prine.
And then I took three dollar bills out of my billfold and folded them once and slid them inside.
I stood there with the card in my hand and I thought it was too little. Then I thought it was about right. Three dollars is not a gift. Three dollars is a thank-you. A boy can take a thank-you from an old woman without being ashamed, if it comes in a card with a bird on the front.
On Friday evening I drove to the Whistle Stop Burgers wearing a pair of Clyde’s old work shoes, four sizes too big, stuffed at the toes with rags and tied snug to my ankles with baling twine so they would stay on the pedals. The sneakers were in a paper sack on the passenger seat. At the menu board a voice crackled out. “Welcome to the Whistle Stop, can I take your order?”
“A small coffee, please.”
“One small coffee, one nineteen. Pull around.”
I pulled around. The window slid open, and there was Tyler in the headset with the paper hat on crooked, and when he saw me his face did that thing again, that wide, chipped-tooth opening.
“Mrs. Prine!”
“I brought your shoes back.”
“Aw, you didn’t have to. They’re yours, ma’am. Honest. I’ve got another pair.”
“Young man, I was raised not to keep what isn’t mine.” I passed him the sack. He passed it right back through the window.
“Mrs. Prine, they’ve got a hole in them. Keep them for the garden.”