So we took a break at the church. I sat down beside her on the cold stone, and I handed her a bottle of water from my bag, and I did not say anything for a while. A little boy in a pumpkin costume was already out on the next block, practicing early, and his mother was walking him with a flashlight though it was full daylight.
“Mom,” Paige said after a while. “Can I tell you something dumb?”
“It’s not dumb.”
“When Grandpa Melvin said he’d cover it, I felt so happy. Like somebody had my back.” She turned the water bottle in her hands. “I told everybody at school that he was the best. I said my grandpa drives my route when I’m sick.”
“I know, baby.”
“He sat in my room once. When you were at work. Remember? He sat in the chair by the window for like an hour and he never said anything. I thought he was just keeping me company.”
I put my arm around her.
“I think he was,” I said. “I think both things were true. I think he was keeping you company and he was taking your money. I don’t think a person has to be only one thing.”
She leaned her head against my shoulder, and we sat there in the sun on the church wall until the color came back into her face and she said, “Okay. Thirty-two.”
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And we went on.
Number fifty-eight
I should tell you where my mother lives. Corinne and Melvin have a white ranch house with green shutters at 214 Linden, and it is house number fifty-eight on the route. They have been there for twelve years. I used to think it was a small kindness that my daughter’s route went past her grandmother’s door.
We got there at a little past ten. The route was nearly done by then, with just five houses between us and Leonard Voigt’s mailbox. And as Paige came around the corner onto Linden, I saw that my mother was already standing on the sidewalk in front of her house.
She was in her robe and her slippers. She had not done her hair. She is sixty-eight years old and a very private person, and I do not believe I had ever seen her go outside in that condition in my life. She was holding a white envelope in her hand with a number written on the front in blue pen.
Marcella Pelham was beside her. Marcella had walked the whole way over from number four, six blocks, and she was standing at my mother’s elbow with her arms crossed like a hall monitor.
“Paige,” she said. “Come here, sweetheart.”
Paige walked up to her grandmother. She stood in front of her with the grocery bag and said, because she was brought up right, “Hi, Grandma. I have your note. It’s number fifty-eight. I didn’t know if you’d want one, because you’re family, but I wrote you one anyway.”
My mother closed her eyes. Then she opened them.
“I read it,” she said. “Marcella gave me hers first, and I walked out here, and there was one on the door.” She held up the envelope. “It says you did not quit.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know you didn’t.” She said it quickly, like a woman signing a check. “I know that, Paige. I am so sorry. I did not know.”
“It’s okay, Grandma.”