Thursday
Thursday morning I worked my shift. At twelve thirty I told the floor lead I was taking my lunch in town, and I drove the six minutes to the bank on Main Street where I’ve kept my account since I was nineteen.
The teller was a girl I went to school with. She looked at the bond and then at me, and she didn’t say a word except, “Do you have your license, hon?”
I gave it to her. She checked it against the name on the bond, and she had me sign the back in front of her, and she ran it through her machine.
With the interest it came to five hundred and twenty three dollars. I asked her for four hundred and twelve in an envelope and the rest in my account.
She counted the cash out on the counter. Twenties and a ten and two ones. She put it in a plain white bank envelope and slid it under the glass.
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“Is everything all right, Tessa?” she asked me, quiet, so the man behind me wouldn’t hear.
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “It’s for my girl. For something that matters.”
I went back to the hospital and ate half a sandwich in my truck and went back to folding. The other half I couldn’t get down.
Rory on the porch
Rory came by the house Thursday afternoon around four. I was on the porch swing with a glass of tea. Nell was upstairs on her third round of packing.
He came up the steps slow and stood at the top with his hat in his hands. He had not slept. You could see it all over him.
“I went to the pawn shop,” he said. “I tried to see what they’d give me on my chainsaw. It wasn’t but sixty dollars, Tess. It wasn’t near enough.”
“Don’t sell your saw,” I told him. “You’ll need it when you go back to work.”
“I’ve got to do something,” he said. “I can’t let her miss that trip. I’ll go up there right now and tell her what I did, and I’ll take whatever she says to me.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “She’s going on that trip. It’s paid for.”
He looked at me then, the first time all week. He looked at my face for a long time. Then he looked at my purse on the swing beside me.
“What did you do?” he asked.