Part 6
Paul asked her to come to the laundry. The repairs were underway, and he was outside taking appointments for the customers whose clothes they would be allowed to collect later that day. He had set up a folding table on the sidewalk with a thermos and a chair that was too low for him.
Nancy left Otis at Paul’s house first. When she returned to the shop, her brother handed her a stack of collection tickets and asked her to wait until he finished with a man looking for his wife’s winter coat.
The customer had brought the wrong ticket. Paul searched by name, then by telephone number, then found the coat under the name of the woman’s sister. He did not make the man feel foolish. Nancy watched his large finger move patiently down the list and remembered why they had managed to work together so long.
When the sidewalk was clear, she told him about Leah’s money.
Paul took off his glasses. “Since June?”
“I thought I’d have it back to her before it mattered.”
“You bought a machine with it. It mattered in June.”
“I know that now.”
He looked at her for a moment, then put the glasses back on and opened the repair estimate. He went through what they had, what had already been paid, and what they needed to reserve for work still being assessed. Nancy understood the figures. There was no secret column from which her daughter’s money could be returned without leaving something else unpaid.
“I could cover her deposit,” Paul said at last. “Mine, personally. You pay me back over the winter.”
Nancy felt relief so suddenly that she reached for his arm.
“But you and I need to settle the delivery route,” he continued. “I can’t keep doing Saturday pickups, then the maintenance, then another favor because nobody told me what was happening.”
She withdrew her hand. The criticism was fair, and she disliked how quickly it made his offer feel smaller.
“I wasn’t asking you to take over.”
“You don’t usually ask.”
He pushed the estimate toward her. She sat beside him with the customers’ laundry visible through the window, bagged and waiting. The job they knew how to do was right there. Everything around it had become difficult.
Nancy called Leah from the pickup and said Paul could help with the deposit. She explained that the loan would be hers to repay, that Leah would not owe him, that they could finally get her out of the motel.
Leah was quiet.
“Would you call Mrs. Givens yourself?” she asked.
“I haven’t called her.”
“You said on the message you could explain our circumstances.”
Nancy looked at the voice message she had sent before Leah answered. She had offered exactly that: to speak with the landlord, smooth things over, make sure she understood the baby had been ill and the family would be involved.
“I meant if it helped.”
“It wouldn’t.”
Nancy put a finger beneath the edge of the steering-wheel cover, where the stitching had come loose. “All right.”
“I need the money you owe me. I’ll decide what to say about my family.”
Afterward, Nancy sat with the truck engine off. She had made a real effort, found real money, and still managed to put herself between Leah and a front door.
At the motel that evening, Leah let her come in with a bag of groceries. Ben lay on a clean blanket on the floor while his mother sat beside him, encouraging him toward a soft block. He reached, missed, and slapped the blanket with sudden indignation.
Nancy laughed before she could stop herself. Ben looked up, startled, then made the same irritated sound at her. It was the most himself he had seemed since Saturday.
She knelt carefully on the far side of the blanket. “You tell it.”
For several minutes, they watched him work. Leah showed Nancy how he had begun turning the block with the heel of his hand instead of trying to close his whole fist around it. Nancy had missed that change. She wanted to ask when it happened and was afraid the answer would be this morning, without you.
“Have you sorted out next week?” Nancy asked.
Leah turned the block so Ben could reach its soft handle. “Fewer hours for now. I talked to the clinic. It’ll make things tight, but I can’t go straight back to the old schedule.”
Nancy calculated the difference in wages before she could help it. The motel, the appointments, a deposit somewhere, then rent. She had been thinking of repayment as the difficult part; Leah would still have an entire month to get through afterward.
“Is there something I can pick up for you?”
“Groceries help. Ask me first, though. There’s no freezer in this thing.” Leah nodded toward the little refrigerator. “You brought enough soup for an army.”
Nancy looked at the containers she had packed so carefully. “I’ll take half back.”
“Please.”
She put two containers in her bag. Leah moved the remaining one onto the shelf without having to tilt it, and the refrigerator door finally closed properly.
The room smelled of toast from somebody else’s microwave. Through the wall came the high, thin sound of a television, and Nancy pictured Leah lying awake here with one ear directed toward the crib. She reached for her daughter’s folded cardigan and put it over the back of the chair instead of offering Paul’s house again.
“I told Talia she didn’t have to keep taking the shop calls,” she said.
Leah glanced at her. “Good.”
“I didn’t realize Paul had sent them to her.”
“You can still tell him to stop.”
Nancy nodded. She turned toward Ben, but Leah was still watching her.
When Ben grew tired, Leah lifted him and checked the time. Nancy gathered the empty grocery bag, then stopped beside the motel’s little dresser.
“I miss you both.”
Leah looked down at the child against her shoulder. “I miss being able to leave him with you without wondering what you won’t tell me.”
Nancy stayed still. Outside, someone dragged a suitcase past their door, its little wheels catching on every seam in the concrete.
“I don’t know how long that takes,” Leah said.
“I don’t either.”
Nancy drove back to Paul’s house without calling anyone. In the driveway, she took the route book out of the pickup’s glove compartment and carried it inside. Before bed, she removed the tool bag, the spare coat, and the plastic tub of clean delivery towels.
For the first time in years, the truck was empty.
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