The Crew That Refilled Locker 114
“Of this year.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sixty-two days,” Grant said, reading the board. Then he turned to Rich.
“Is there anything else out here I should see?”
And Rich Hargadine, who had said he had not noticed anything, said, “Yes.”
Vern showed him the locker. Grant walked behind him down the east hall, with Kyle and Rich behind. Locker 114 stood open, propped with a rubber wedge. On the shelf sat a jar of butterscotch discs, a tin of bandages, a photograph of a crew at a summer picnic and a woman in a straw hat. On the inside of the door hung a calendar with five days crossed off, in three different hands.
Grant Whitcomb stood in front of it longer than he had stood in front of the board.
“Whose is this?” he said, though he knew.
“Hers,” said Vern. “We figured somebody ought to keep it.”
Nobody said anything for a while. Down the hall the cell was still running and the lights were still green.
Then Rich Hargadine spoke, and I have always respected him for it. “Mr. Whitcomb, I had her lock cut at 4:41 on Friday morning, and I packed her things in a box myself and put it on her bench, and nobody made me. I could have asked for a week. I didn’t. I want that said in front of the crew. It’s mine.”
Grant looked at the calendar a moment longer. Then he said, to no one in particular and to all of them, “Give me until tomorrow.”
They came to my house at ten the next morning.
I was watering the hydrangeas. I had been out there since eight, though they did not need it, because I had a feeling about the day. Grant Whitcomb, Kyle Lindquist, Rich Hargadine, and Pam Eilers got out of the rented sedan, in that order, each of them looking at the ground.
I kept on with the hose.
I would like to tell you I was gracious. I was not. I made them stand at the end of the walk in the August heat for four full minutes while I finished the hydrangeas, and I am not sorry. Then I turned off the spigot and asked if anyone wanted iced tea.
We sat on the screened porch. Grant did not take his jacket off. He had a leather folder, and he did not open it right away.
“Mrs. Hanneman,” he said, “I came to apologize, and I don’t have a way to say it that doesn’t sound smaller than it is. So I’ll say it plain. We made a decision about your job by sorting a column of numbers, and nobody looked up to see whose name was in the column. That’s on me, and on the company. Your crew had to tell me. I’m sorry it took your crew.”
He sat the way a farm boy sits when he is ashamed. Back straight, hands flat, looking at my face.
“I appreciate that,” I said.
He opened the folder. It was not complicated. My separation was rescinded, my employment, pay, and benefits restored without a break in service, with back pay for the days I had missed. My anniversary would stand at October ninth. The plan would pay the full thirty-year benefit and the retiree medical bridge. All of it was in writing, and all of it, Grant said, would have been signed whether or not I came back to work.
“I don’t want my old job,” I said. “The cell has my old job.”