The Shoes I Kept Polished for Renae

The left heel was in a sandwich bag, folded over twice and taped to the toe.

There was no note. There was no name, and no word, and no message at all.

Booker stood up off the stool.

I do not know how long I held them. Long enough for the bell to ring twice, and for me to not look up either time.

I set them on the counter, one beside the other, with the little heel between them.

Then I took off my apron, and I washed my hands at the slop sink, and I put on a clean one.

I have mended ten thousand heels. I know to the quarter-minute how long a heel takes. I sat at the bench where my daughter had stood, with Booker at my elbow and Orrin by the door with his thumb hooked in his scanner strap, and I did it.

I ground the stub flat. I glued the lift and tacked the seat with brads, and I set the heel and clamped it, and I rubbed the cream leather with the softest cloth I own until the gray came up a shade.

It took me ten minutes. I did it right.

I did not charge for it. I did not wrap it with a note, either. I put it in tissue and a plain box and handed it across the counter.

“Same road?” Orrin asked.

“Same road,” I said. “Tell her it’s done. Tell her that’s all it says.”

He put the box on the hand truck, as gently as an egg.

At the door he turned, with one hand on the door frame, and said, “Yes, ma’am,” and the bell rang its two notes.

I do not know if she will come. I want to be honest, because the whole thing has been about my not being honest.

I have been told she is angry. I would be. I know that a mended shoe is not a mended daughter, and I will not pretend a heel can take back eight and a half years.

What I know is this. I came out from behind my counter. I said it where it was said. I made a pair of shoes for a girl with Verl’s gray eyes whom I have not met, and it cost me what it cost.

The shelf is still up. I took the shoes down a few at a time, wrapped them in tissue, and put them in a box for whoever might want them, and where they stood I set Verl’s cap on a nail.

The lamp stays on all night.

It is not for burglars. It is for a woman who once asked a parcel driver if it was still lit, and who may or may not come to see for herself.

I am at the counter at seven every morning. I am on the near side of it, with my hands empty, facing the door.