The Tab Book at the Corner Grocery

Jace stood behind the register with his hands at his sides. He had not said a word since Ardith opened that ledger. His ears were still red.

Ardith turned to him. Her voice was not hard. It was the voice you use with a good dog that has done a bad thing.

“The tab stays, Jace,” she said. “It stays as long as I do. And when I’m gone, I hope you’ll keep it because you want to. Now, I think you owe Wendell something.”

Jace looked down at the counter. Then he came around the end of it, slowly, past the girl at the bagging station, and stood in front of my father.

He is a tall young man, six foot one, and my father is taller still, even stooped.

For a second they just stood there, the old man in the fedora and the young one in the apron.

“Grandpa,” Jace said. His voice cracked on it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about who it was. I should have asked. I should have come and talked to you. I’m sorry I called you Mr. Ostrom.”

Dad looked at him a while. Then he put his big hand on Jace’s shoulder and left it there.

“Well,” Dad said, “it is my name. But I like the other one better.”

Jace nodded and looked at the floor. Then he reached out and took the paper sack from Dad’s arms, all of it, the coffee and the bologna and the eggs, and held it against his chest with both arms.

“I’ll carry this out for you,” he said.

“I can carry my own groceries,” Dad said.

“I know you can,” Jace said. “Let me anyway.”

So Dad let him. They walked out the front door together into the sunshine, the old man first and the young one behind him with the sack, and Agnes got up from her chair to hold the door.

I watched them through the front window. Jace walked Dad down to the curb at the corner and stood there talking to him for a minute in the sun. I could not hear what they said. Dad laughed once.

Then Jace handed him the sack, and Dad set off up Main Street toward home with his groceries in his arm and his hat square on his head, and Jace stood on the curb and watched him go the whole first block.

Burl stood up from his bench and put his paper under his arm. He walked past me on his way out the door, and he touched the brim of his cap and said, “Good morning, Marlys.” That was all. It was plenty.

Agnes caught my sleeve. “I’m sorry I went over his head,” she said. “But somebody had to tell Ardith, and it couldn’t be you.”

“Thank you, Agnes,” I said. And I meant it more than I could say.

Ardith closed the old ledger and tucked it back under her arm. She looked at me over her glasses. “Tell Leif his boy’s going to be fine,” she said. “He just needed to read some history.”