Part 3
Diana wrote her email address on the back of a grocery receipt. “The whole thing,” she said, and handed it to June. June put it in her coat pocket without asking whether Diana believed her.
Two days later, she sat beside Lena outside Beth’s office. Lena had brought a fresh statement in a yellow envelope, and June kept catching herself reading the young woman’s face for signs of retreat. Otis was at home with Ruth, who had brought her sewing machine over so he wouldn’t spend the afternoon watching the door.
Beth was on the phone. A passenger’s appointment had changed, and the new time left him stranded outside a medical office after the last van returned. Beth drew a box around something on her calendar, told him she would pick him up herself, and asked whether he could manage her car’s lower seat.
When she let them in, she looked older than June remembered. There was an empty space on the wall where the safety certificate had hung. Beth cleared a stack of driver applications from the two chairs.
“Diana sent me your message,” she said.
“I gave her the statement,” June said.
“I asked you to wait until we met.”
“You weren’t the only person who needed it.”
Beth sat. She had hired June after riding beside her on three routes, watching her get passengers into seats that seemed designed for smaller, younger bodies. She had watched June check under every row, even when she had driven one person. June needed to remember that while she looked at the woman across the desk.
Lena took her statement out of the envelope and read it aloud. Once she stopped and crossed out a word, changing “returned” to “walked with him,” because Walter hadn’t got back into the van alone. June kept her hands in her lap and let her finish.
Beth opened a folder and took out a route sheet. There was writing on the reverse, crowded around the printed mileage boxes. Lena had written that she let Walter board after June left; farther down, she had described forgetting to return for him.
June read it once. She pushed it toward Lena, who touched the corner without picking it up.
“You had that,” June said.
“We had three accounts of that afternoon. Everybody was upset. Walter couldn’t give us an order of events.”
“Mine and hers aren’t different.”
Beth ran a finger along the folder’s edge. “I should have included the timing. I was trying to get one account we could stand behind.”
“Why did you pick that one?” Lena asked.
Beth looked at the route sheet. “Because the van was June’s responsibility that morning. Because the county wanted to know what we’d done about it, and we had to answer. I can’t give you a better answer now.”
June had imagined this office conversation many times. In most versions Beth understood without needing to be shown anything, and June walked out with her coat over her arm. Now Lena was worrying the envelope into a thin yellow curl, and June still had to decide what to ask for.
Beth brought out a second document. The board had reviewed Diana’s complaint and Lena’s new statement at its meeting the previous evening. It was prepared to retract the allegation against June, offer back pay, and give her the dispatch opening.
“There’s a check ready if we can agree on this,” Beth said. “You should have had a chance to answer the full account six months ago.”
The proposed statement said June completed her final inspection. It assigned the later boarding and failure to assist Walter to a junior employee acting without authorization. June read that paragraph twice, then looked at Lena.
“I’m the opening,” Lena said. “They told me yesterday.”
Beth leaned forward. “We have a van that needs a transmission and drivers taking extra runs without asking for the hours. We can’t keep paying for positions we don’t have.”
June knew the van. She had driven it through two winters with a towel around the gearshift to catch the draft. She also knew there had been no dispatch opening until Lena told the truth again.
“The key was there for all of us,” she said.
“It wasn’t supposed to be used to board passengers between runs.”
“I showed her how we used it.”
“You showed every driver we hired. You said there was no point keeping people on their feet in the office when their van seats were empty.” Beth stopped, looking at June’s face. “I’m not saying that puts Walter back on your route.”
June had asked Beth to have the second key cut. On crowded winter afternoons she let passengers wait in the van for family pickups, with Lena taking them out while June finished her mileage log. She expected whoever was at the counter to keep track, and never made those transfers part of the written check.
She folded the offer once. “I need to take this home.”
At the apartment, Otis met her with a sock he had taken from the laundry basket. June exchanged it for a treat and set his supper bowl on the floor. Ruth had finished packing the dishes and was working on a hem at the bare table.
June spread out the offer. The amount would cover rent, the deposit on another place if necessary, and what she owed Ruth. She used the calculator on her phone, checked the figures against the wages, then worked them again without the extra cleaning shifts. Otis ate behind her, pushing his bowl slowly across the linoleum.
“You could stay,” Ruth said.
“I could stay.”
Her sister put down her scissors. June saw her beginning to plan the canceled move, the crate returned, the sewing things carried back into the spare bedroom. She wanted to let Ruth have that relief.
“They’re firing Lena.”
“She put him in the van.”
“I know what she did.”
“June, you don’t have to give up everything because she did something wrong.”
June gathered the pages before Otis could put his wet muzzle on them. Ruth got up to wrap the mug June had left beside her. June reached to stop her, then let her finish; for a moment she couldn’t bear to have another thing waiting to be decided.
Beth’s offer required June to sign that the attached account was complete. The check could be hers Friday morning, before she had to answer her landlord. She called to ask whether the key arrangement could be included and heard Beth draw in a breath.
“The board approved this wording,” Beth said. “I can’t promise money or a position under something else.”
“Then ask them.”
“I will. But don’t count on an answer by tomorrow.”
June set the phone down. Otis had fallen asleep against the partly collapsed crate, his flank pressed through the opening where the door should have been. She sat beside him on the kitchen floor, the offer folded small enough to fit in her hand.
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