Summer/Fall 2015

 

By Abby Hogelin

 

           The trouble began with small amounts. I couldn’t believe one of my employees would steal right under my nose in myrestaurant. Okay, maybe it was still Dad’s restaurant since he owned it, but when he retired six years ago and left me to manage it alone, I started considering it mine. Last Tuesday night after closing, Misty took her till to the back to count down for the night and came up twenty dollars short. I was in my office adjacent to the kitchen, punching buttons on the adding machine and scratching numbers into the ledger when she came in, running her fingers through strands that had broken loose from her ponytail.

            “Mr. Brantley, please don’t be mad at me,” she said, scraping acrylic nails over her scalp.

            “What is it?”

            “I don’t know what happened, but I’m twenty dollars short tonight.” We had a policy that any amount over or under five dollars was an automatic write-up.

            “It’s okay. Did you count it twice?” She nodded and I told her to bring the drawer to me. In my office lamplight, I counted and recounted the money but kept coming up short. At 9:45, I told her, “You should go home now. Your family’s probably worried about you.”

            “Mr. Brantley, I can’t lose my job. I gotta pay for Davey and Elijah’s little league uniforms, and you know Samuel never sends child support on time.”

            Misty was maybe a few years younger than me, with two kids and a husband who never showed up anymore. Even though we had attended the same high school years ago, that was about all I knew about her now. She was pretty in a plump way, with thin brown hair streaked blond, pale blue eyes, and soft shoulders.

            “I’m not going to fire you. Just be extra careful tomorrow, okay?”

            She thanked me and turned to leave, her hands shaking a little as she untied her apron.

            The next night, fifty dollars disappeared. I had watched Misty carefully ringing up each customer all day, noticed how she slowly counted the bills and coins back to them and told them to have a nice day, smiled and offered them a toothpick from the plastic dispenser in front of the cash register. So when the till came up short again, I was as confused and upset as she. We recounted the money several times, Misty holding back tears, until finally I told her to go home and try not to worry about it. This was too much for it to be a minor mistake like forgetting to ring up one customer’s bill. We charged $6.99 for the lunch buffet, so one family’s bill was never more than forty dollars. It couldn’t be Misty’s fault; it was time to start questioning individual employees.

            I had be careful though; Okalona was full of gossips, and most of them worked for me. I didn’t want Dad to find out either. He didn’t need any more stress now with Mom gone and his heart so full of plaque from eating fried food at the restaurant. If it ever got out among the employees that we had a thief, no one would say anything. They’d close ranks and defend each other against the mean, rich manager. Well, I wished I could tell them one thing: my dad was rich, not me, and if I had anything to do with the way our family handled money, I’d give them all a raise and a place to live too. I guess that’s why Mom always called me the Democrat of the family. Around here, that’s like saying you’re a black sheep or an atheist. At least where religion was concerned, Mom would be proud of me. But she’s not here anymore, and I wonder whether she sees or knows what happens.

            That night I drove Mom’s white Cadillac home along the shadowy amber-lit streets, down Maple, right on Longview Drive, left on Longview Court, where I stopped at the dead end in front of my small two-bedroom house. Gnats and moths crowded around and bumped into the warm porch light, ricocheted off each other and rammed themselves into the light again while crickets hummed in the bushes. The neighborhood housed families with young children who had to go to school or daycare early the next morning. As I unlocked the door, I found myself wishing more than ever that there was someone I could talk to. Eleanor Rigby meowed at me from the kitchen doorway, arching her back as I bent to pet her soft gray and white fur.

            “Hey Elly, did you miss me?” I picked her up and carried her around the kitchen as I got a can of catfood out of the cupboard, opened and emptied it in her dish. She licked the food, and I stood for a minute watching her, marveling at her ease and carelessness. I grabbed some leftover ravioli out of the refrigerator for myself and popped it in the microwave. While it heated, I listened to the messages on the answering machine, but stopped when I heard Mrs. Rutherford’s voice.

            “Frank? Are you there? You coming to choir practice tonight? We need to go over the special music for Sunday.”

            Was it Wednesday? How had I forgotten about playing piano for choir practice? I’d done it every week for the past fourteen years after graduating from Montevallo. I had started as a music major concentrating on voice. Then one day a professor pulled me into his office and said I wasn’t pushing myself enough.

            “You’re a strong tenor, but you need to increase your range,” he had said. “Don’t get too comfortable. Let your voice grow and develop. ”

            A few weeks later, Dad needed a stint in his heart and Mom asked me to help her with the business side of the restaurant while he recovered. Numbers had never been her strong suit. I switched to a business major and worked part time at the diner while finishing school. I figured it would be a temporary thing, and I could eventually go back and focus on music, maybe move somewhere and teach lessons. I realized now that I never really had any definite plans. I just knew I liked music and hoped it could provide money somehow. One year turned into four and then Mom’s accident happened. Then I had to stay to hold Dad and the restaurant together.

            Those first few months at the restaurant without Mom or Dad were strange. All day long, I felt that dark, eerie quietness the restaurant got when we closed at night, when overturned chairs sat on tables and the floor shone with disinfecting mop water. I kind of liked that quiet feeling though. It let me think about Mom and quit worrying about Dad so I could pray.

 

***

 

 

            Now it was already after 10 p.m. Choir practice would have finished an hour ago. Usually on Wednesday nights I let Claudette’s close up without me, but I was so worried about money, I wanted to stick around and see how it came out. I led singing too sometimes, when Mrs. Rutherford was out of town or sick, but I didn’t like it much. People at church said I had a nice voice and needed to sing more often, but I thought that if you were going to sing in church it ought to be about worship, not showing off how good a singer you were. Maybe that was just me.

            The next day, Thursday, Laura was the head waitress and cashier. She didn’t know about the money problems, and I didn’t tell her, just to make sure it wasn’t Misty’s fault. During the mid-afternoon lull between lunch and school letting out, I sat down in a corner booth where the waitresses usually ate leftover chicken fingers we couldn’t sell because they had been under the heat lamp too long. A few minutes later, Laura came by with a basket of chicken fingers and a large glass of sweet tea. She seemed surprised to see me there, and I asked her to sit down.

            “Why you whispering? You got a secret?”

            I tried to raise my voice a little, but not too much so that the cook wouldn’t hear if he stood at the counter behind me. “No, just wanted to chat.” I attempted a casual smile, but the muscles around my mouth felt stiff. How to go about this? I couldn’t just come right out and ask her, but if I didn’t imply what I meant heavily enough, she might not understand. Laura crunched into an overdone chicken finger and raised her eyebrows.

            “What I wanted to say is–how’s your family doing?” I reached over to pick up a chicken strip, asking for permission with my eyes. She gestured for me to get one.

            “They’re all right I guess. Timothy’s got a ulcer or something in his mouth, says it’s making everything taste sour. Marlena has a loose tooth, so she can’t eat much either. Between the two of them I don’t know what to cook.” I listened patiently as she described all her family’s ailments and wondered how long this would take.

            When she paused to take a sip of tea, I jumped in with, “What I meant was, are y’all okay . . . financially?”

            “Yeah, we manage all right. Wait a minute, are you offering me a raise?” She sat up and looked around as if to make sure nobody else was listening.

            “No, sorry. Can’t afford that right now. But you’d tell me if you were–having trouble, right?”

            “Of course.”

            “You wouldn’t take drastic measures, would you?”

            “Frank Brantley, I am a good woman and would never consider suicide as a way out. And I am shocked that you, a church-going man, would ever think of such a thing.”

            “No, I didn’t mean–” I watched her eyes dart back and forth quickly over my face. “Never mind. Enjoy the rest of your lunch.”

            I got up, frustrated, feeling my forehead wrinkle all the way up to my hairline, or where it used to be. I had to figure out a better way to imply stealing without coming out and asking. If there was just somebody I could talk to, strategize with–but I couldn’t talk to anyone here; not even the most trusted employees were free from suspicion. The police? No, it was too soon to alert them, and not enough money missing to report yet. But I didn’t want it to get that far. What if we lost hundreds before they were willing to get involved? Then it would take days, maybe weeks for them to find the thief. I couldn’t wait that long. I had to figure this out on my own.

            I stood in the middle of the dining area, noticing all its imperfections for what seemed like the first time. The way the yellowish brown tile sloped downhill toward the side windows that distorted the sunlight coming in from the parking lot. Table number seven in the far right corner, with its overflowing ashtray, peeling Formica, and uneven legs that made it rock anytime someone sat down or leaned elbows on the table. A waitress had tried to fix it a few weeks ago by putting a folded piece of paper under the short leg, but that didn’t last long. The paper had gotten soggy when ST mopped the following night. I walked up the slight incline through the doorway into the larger dining room, where the hot bar stood along the back wall next to the tea and coffee makers. Tom was removing a nearly full pan of black eyed peas from the steam table, condensation dripping on the floor below. He nodded at me and his lips hung loose in a smile that showed his large upper row of teeth. I ran a finger over a table that had recently been cleared. Even freshly wiped it felt greasy. The whole restaurant was coated in it.

            I wondered what I was doing here, managing this restaurant, letting each day slip by like beads from a broken necklace. I imagined what I’d be doing if it weren’t for Dad and inheriting the business from him. My older brothers had gone out of state for college, married early, and never moved back home. Alvin was a surgeon living in Knoxville, and Joseph did research in clinical psychology somewhere in northern Pennsylvania. I sat at a table in the middle of the room, rested my chin on my palm, and traced the faux wood grain with my fingernail. Was I tired of managing the restaurant? Maybe, but it was more than that; something else bugged me that I couldn’t name. It was within my conscious thought, just out of reach of words. It wasn’t just that money was missing, because I knew that would eventually get replaced when the thief was identified; it was a larger unsettling feeling but I wasn’t sure what it was.

            “Frank? You all right?” Misty stood over me, holding a damp washrag in her hand.

            “You ought to change out that water more often, it’s not getting the tables clean.”

            “Okay.” She went to the back and returned a few minutes later carrying a fresh bucket of soapy water. Now here was someone who listened to what I said.

            “Misty, I’d like to talk to you,” I called.

            She ducked her head, tucked wisps of hair behind her ears, and followed me to a brightly lit table on the west side of the restaurant.

            “Can I trust you?” I asked, leaning towards her across the table. She nodded and looked nervous or excited, I couldn’t tell which.

            “You know about the missing money. I think somebody’s stealing from the cash register.”

            “Who?”

            “I don’t know. You wouldn’t have any ideas about that, would you?”

            She shook her head. “I thought it was my fault, like maybe I didn’t count it right.”

            “Two nights in a row? Seventy dollars total? No. If you had done it, you wouldn’t have told me right away.”

            “I just don’t see how anybody could steal from you.” She shifted her weight under the table, uncrossed her legs or something and bumped my foot in the process. She blushed a little and looked at the table.

            “Any guesses? Anybody been acting suspicious lately?” She hesitated. “Don’t be trying to cover for them now. I’ll make it worth your while, give you a nice little bonus or something.” I thought about what I’d told Laura earlier and cringed.

            She lifted her head and her eyes caught the light coming in the window. Her eyes looked almost like water. “I’d love to help if I could, but I don’t know anything.”

            “Well, keep your eyes open then. I need somebody on the inside, watching when my back’s turned. Can you do that for me? Don’t tell anybody what I said, not even Laura.” I knew how she and the other waitresses were good friends and prone to talk during their breaks.

            “Okay,” she said and smiled. “I’ll do it.” For the rest of her shift, I noticed Misty walking around with a sly smile, her face flushed a pretty shade of pink. Why did she have to act so obvious? Anybody could tell she had a secret.

            I walked around distracted for the rest of the day, feeling like I couldn’t finish a thought or an action. I didn’t try to question anyone else; clearly, I needed to think harder about what to say. Besides, maybe Misty would take care of it. She was observant, and nobody had a reason to be afraid of her. Later, as I sat at my desk, I’d suddenly realize that I had been staring at the time and temperature on the bank sign outside my window. 4:14 and 81 degrees. I tried to remember what I had been thinking, what had set off my daydream. An image of shining light eyes, wispy hair. Why hadn’t I noticed before? I shook my head quickly. No, I couldn’t; she was my employee and still married, on paper anyway.

 

***

 

            At 6:00, Dad came in for dinner, and Laura seated him at his regular spot in the corner booth of the smaller dining room. I overheard him order a burger and fries, so I went to the back and asked the cook to squeeze as much grease out of the patty as possible.

            “Oh, and make a new batch of fries with peanut oil and less salt,” I added.

            “Don’t know why we gotta make special food just ‘cause he’s your daddy,” James replied.

            “It’s not that. I’m worried about his health.” A little while later, I passed his table and refilled his sweet tea. I knew he liked a lot of ice, so I tried to pour it so that ice would fall from the pitcher and tea trickled around it.

            “You don’t have to do that, you know. There’s plenty of waitresses–”

            “I know. I wanted to.” I slid into the bench opposite him and clasped my hands on the table. “How’s the food?” Even though I saw him at least once a week in the restaurant and we talked on the phone almost every day, we always had to start a conversation with small talk. It made me feel like I didn’t know him anymore.

            “Burger’s don’t taste like they used to,” he said. His mouth sagged in an uncomfortable line while he chewed, revealing yellowed bottom dentures.

            I knew what he meant. It wasn’t named Claudette’s Kitchen for nothing. If I thought hard enough, I could remember when Mom was still the cook, back at the old location on Clinton Street next to the Dollar General. It must have been thirty years ago.

 

***

 

            That night, thirty dollars was gone. So the fool was getting more cautious. I started a chart on the last page of my ledger. “Tuesday- $20, Wednesday-$50, Thursday-$30.” One hundred dollars in three days. In the last column, I noted the cashiers who worked each night: Misty and Laura. I wondered if I should record everyone who worked on each night. I pulled out the work schedule calendar and transferred all the names into another column, crowding the names together to make them fit at the edge of the page. I tried to figure out who had worked all three days. They included Misty and Laura, both waitresses; James the cook–of course he worked every day; and ST and Tom, who were busboys/dishwashers/janitors. Unless there were two of them working together. I hadn’t thought of that before. If two could steal, why not more? I felt a headache coming on and shoved my fingers through the patches of hair on either side of my head. My blood pulsed and my hands felt swollen, thick and clumsy.

            Misty stopped in the doorway before leaving. Her hair had come out of the ponytail a little and formed fuzzy wings on either side of her head.

            “I just want to remind you I won’t be here tomorrow ‘cause Davey has a ball game out of town. Will you hold my paycheck for me?”

            “Of course, sorry I forgot to write it early. I’ve been so distracted–”

            She nodded and looked around the room. I watched her eyes linger on my framed diploma, then drift down to the shelf below where I had a collection of old Coca-Cola bottles and memorabilia.

            “I think it’s Tom,” she said, turning towards me. Her eyes glittered and she smiled slightly with a mixture of pride and happiness as if she had solved the mystery.

            “Tom?” I asked. I motioned for her to close the door. “You think he’s the one stealing?” It was impossible; the man was mentally challenged.

            “I know you’re thinking he’s a retard,” she said. I blinked slowly. “But this is perfect. He don’t know any better, so he’ll give the money back and you won’t have to fire anybody.”

            “That doesn’t make any sense. Do you have proof?”

            She nodded again. “He was smiling especially big today.”

            “He always smiles. He’s a happy guy.”

            “No, this was more than usual. Plus, I saw him slip a fifty-dollar bill into his shirt pocket. Said he was going to spend it at the fair.”

            I shook my head. “Only thirty dollars missing tonight.”

            “Oh.” Her shoulders slumped forward and she got quiet again. “I don’t know then. I thought for sure–”

            “You’d blame a simple man to protect one of your friends? Who’s really stealing?”

            “I don’t know! I thought, where else could he get that much money? I was trying to help. I gotta go.” Her face had turned bright pink, and she sniffed as she stepped over the threshold.

            At home that night, I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t meant to snap at her. Instead, I had imagined asking her out, running what if scenarios in my head. We’d go somewhere out of town, to a dark movie theater or some place I could hold her hand and no one we knew would see us. It’d have to be a secret, even from her children. I was thinking of excuses to tell the babysitter when she came in and accused Tom. How could she do that? How could I be attracted to someone so insensitive? But she had had a rough time with her husband leaving. Maybe she didn’t know any better.

***

            By Saturday morning we had lost a total of 137 dollars. Now the idiot was taking odd amounts of money. I had instituted a new policy: no one touched the money but me from the safe to the cash register. I knew Misty must feel foolish trotting behind me as I carried her till through the restaurant, but I told her we had to take extra precautions. That morning, like most weekends, was especially busy with people from out of town ordering big breakfasts of eggs, bacon, sausage, grits, hashbrowns, and pancakes. Even I had to carry a few orders out from the kitchen to help the waitresses keep up. When we hit the late morning lull, I pulled Misty aside in the hallway outside the bathrooms.

            We faced the large square mirror in between each restroom door. Somehow making eye contact with her was less intimidating that way. She reapplied lipstick in a pink shade that complemented her skin tone.

            “I’m sorry I yelled at you the other night.”

            She turned towards me, pressing her lips together. “I was stupid to blame Tom. You must think I’m an idiot.”

            “No.” The yellow walls behind us seemed too bright. “Listen, I still need your help figuring out who did it.”

            She put the lipstick in her purse. “You need my help or you want my help?”

            “Both,” I answered.

            “I thought so.” She twisted her mouth and turned to walk away. I caught her left arm just above the elbow. She stopped but didn’t turn around.

            “I mean, I want your help. I want– you to come to church with me tomorrow?” It came out half question, half statement, as if my mouth couldn’t decide whether to beg or command her. I felt like I was balancing on the middle of a see saw, rocking between manager and friend or something more, I didn’t know what. She turned then, and I kept holding her arm. “Bring your kids. It’ll be nice to have someone there who knows what my unspoken prayer request is for.”

            “Okay.”

***

            The next morning at 11:00, Misty led her two boys into the back of the sanctuary at First Baptist Church. I was already up front, preparing to start the prelude music, but I had a moment so I met them as they stepped into a pew in the middle section of the church. She wore a flowery purple sundress and the boys had on button-up shirts with clip-on ties.

            “Davey, Elijah, you remember Mr. Brantley,” Misty said.

            I shook each of their hands solemnly and said, “Nice to have you visiting with us this morning,” the same thing I said to all the guests. I grinned at Misty then returned to the front. As I sat on the piano bench watching people fill the sanctuary, I tried to see it all through her eyes: the plush royal blue carpet and matching pew cushions, the four tiny chandeliers hanging from the ceiling above each aisle, and the stained glass windows along the outer walls. I wondered if she had ever been in a church this nice before, or if she regularly attended church at all.

            I came to this church mainly because my family had always gone here. I knew everybody’s name and their children and grandchildren. Of course, old ladies would pry into my business, asking why I didn’t find a nice lady and settle down and have a family. I’d smile politely and tell them I hadn’t found the right woman yet. What I wanted to say was you can’t just decide you want to get married if there’s no one to get married to. Now I had made it more difficult on myself by falling for a woman already married who couldn’t divorce because she didn’t know where her husband was. Was I falling for her, though? Those old ladies would be scandalized if they knew I was thinking about Misty. They’d never guess, because they would think of her as “beneath” me. But I didn’t care about that.

***

            After the service was over, she came towards me through the crowd of people headed for the exits in the back.

            “Well, what did you think?” I asked.

            “The music was beautiful. I didn’t know you were so talented.” She looked around the sanctuary. “I like this preacher much better than the one at the Methodist church. He tells funnier stories.”

            I smiled a little, thinking that wasn’t the best reason to like a preacher. What about his ability to teach the Word of God? Wasn’t that more important? Maybe Misty never thought about that.

            I offered to walk her back to her car. The boys ran ahead of us, snatching off their ties and jumping and chasing each other. We walked slowly, without speaking, but I didn’t feel the need to say anything. I just enjoyed the warm breeze and being beside her. She unlocked the car and helped her kids into the back seat. I opened the driver’s door for her. As she got in, some strands of hair fell into her face. I reached out and smoothed them behind her ear.

            “I hope you’ll come again,” I said.

***

            Later that day, on the phone, Dad asked, “Where’d you meet the young lady?”

            “Who?” My stomach froze.

            “The one at church this morning.”

            “Oh. At Claudette’s.”

            “Customer?”

            “No. Employee.”

            “Frank, what have I always told you and your brothers about dating the waitresses?” Alvin had gone through a period in high school when he tried to ask out all the waitresses, just to make Dad mad. “It’s not appropriate. You are her superior. You don’t want the others to think she’s getting special treatment.”

            “I know. But we’re not dating or anything. She’s married.”

            “Good.” He cleared his throat. “You better be careful, though. I don’t want people talking about my son being a home wrecker.”

            “Dad, you don’t know the whole story. Her husband’s not around anymore–”

            “I don’t need to know the story. Stay away from her.”

            “She’s really nice. She’s helping me . . .” I couldn’t tell him about that. Not yet. “Bottom line is, you can’t tell me what to do or who to see.” Then I hung up on him, my arm shaking as the phone returned to its cradle.

***

            Monday morning brought more bad news: two hundred dollars missing from the safe in the back corner of the kitchen. Now, why Dad decided to put the safe in the kitchen was beyond me. It’d make more sense to put it behind the closed, locked door of the business office, but no, there it stood in the midst of tiny lime green tiles next to the basin where ST washed out the mops.

            I went back to my office and dug around in some file drawers until I found the owner’s manual to the safe. Time to reset the combination. As I knelt in front of the safe, I felt my legs cramp and a wet stain spread along the knee of my khakis. ST walked up and stood beside me, clutching the mop with both hands as if he meant to strangle it.

            “What’re you doing down there, Mr. Brantley?” He clucked his tongue loudly like he did instead of laughing when he thought something was especially funny. “Gonna help me clean the floor?”

            “Yeah, just hand me a toothbrush, and I’ll start scrubbing grout.”

            He laughed this time, a high-pitched wheezing sound, the result of smoking since he was seventeen.

            “Why else would I be down here?”

            “It looked like you forgot the combination,” he said.

            “What makes you say that?” I looked up at him sharply.

            “Cause you got the manual out.”

            I stood up quickly and my knees popped. “What would you do if I had forgotten? What if I died suddenly and no one knew what the combination was?”

“

            Some people write it on the first page of the manual.”

            “So you’d look there?”

            He nodded.

            “Wrong! You don’t have anything to do with the money here. You never touch the safe. Not even if I’m dead.”

            “Who would do it, then?” he asked quietly, holding the mop head close to his face.

            “That’s none of your business.”

            ST shuffled over to the basin and began washing out the mop, humming a little under his breath as he sloshed the mop around in the water.

            “You’re splashing me,” I said from my spot on the floor.

            He twisted the knob to turn off the water. “What’d you say?”

            “I said, stop splashing me with your mop water.”

            He wrung out the mop, put it in the yellow rolling bucket and pushed it out of the room. The wheels clacked loudly on the cracked floor of the kitchen. Before he left, he whispered loudly to the cook, “Somebody’s in a foul mood today, that’s for sure.”

            You’d be in a bad mood too, if somebody was stealing from you and you couldn’t figure out who it was. ST got me thinking, though, about what would happen to the restaurant if I was gone. Maybe somebody in the community would buy it, invest some money to fix it up and hire a cook to fix better food. Nobody in Okalona would buy it though. They liked this greasy mess. I pivoted around and sat with my back against the cool metal surface of the safe. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and imagined the restaurant without me. I couldn’t get rid of the sensation of falling backwards in a dream, reaching at air to grab onto, the wind rushing past me forming lines of color like in a comic book. That feeling of not trusting anyone, feeling totally alone made me wish I could wake up gasping for air and make it go away.

***

            By Wednesday morning, I had made up my mind to contact the police. At that point nearly five hundred dollars was gone and I still had no clue who was doing it. Nobody acted suspicious, but nobody seemed completely innocent either. But first I would call Dad. Let him know what the situation was before he heard about it from someone who heard it on the police scanner. I went back to my office and dialed. It just rang with no answer. We hadn’t talked much since our argument on Sunday, and the awkward formalities in our conversation had increased at almost the same rate as the money that went missing. I thought maybe he had made his daily trek down the quarter-mile-long driveway to check the mail. He called it his daily exercise, the only thing that was keeping him healthy. Healthy being a relative term, of course. I tried again about fifteen minutes later and still no answer. I leaned back in my wooden swivel chair and stared out at the bank sign slowly blinking the time and temperature. 11: 19 and 86 degrees. The phone rang and I answered on the second ring.

            “Frank?” It was Dad’s cleaning lady. “You better come over here. He- he’s passed out on the floor of his study.”

            “Oh my God, is he breathing?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Why did you call me? Call an ambulance!” I grabbed my keys off the desk and ran through the dining room.

            “Is everything okay?” Laura asked, her order pad poised in her hand. Weird how even in my rush to get out, I remembered every detail: the way the white, late morning light slanted through the blinds and across the table where Laura waited on two customers, an older lady and her grown daughter.

            “Where are you going, Frank?” Misty asked, coming from the larger dining room.

            I hardly knew where to look. I was searching one face after another, trying to pick someone to leave in charge. “If I’m not back by closing–” I ran a hand through the left half of my hair– “I don’t know. Leave without me. Just close up, no, call me at the hospital.”

            I heard one of them echo “hospital” as I ran out the door.

***

            Dad’s heart attack shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. Doctors had been warning him for years that he needed to watch what he ate and exercise more. Still, nothing really prepares you for when it happens. I was back and forth all day between his room in the ICU and the hallway, where I called my brothers, aunts, and anyone else I could think of. People at church needed to know, too, so they could pray. That’s when I realized it was Wednesday again.

            “Mrs. Rutherford, it’s Frank. Sorry I’m gonna have to miss choir practice again this week. I feel awful, missing two weeks in a row.”

            “What happened?”

            “Dad’s had a heart attack. He’s in the hospital over here at Lanier.”

            “Goodness! Is he all right?”

            “He’s gonna live. We don’t know right now if he’ll need emergency surgery. They’re going to do a heart cath to diagnose him. He’s hooked up to all these monitors and the nurses say his heart rate is stable.”

            “Oh my! Well, of course you don’t need to worry about us. Do you need anything?”

            “Not right now. Well, call Claudette’s and tell my employees they can close up early.”

***

            Alvin arrived after eleven that night, and Joseph was flying in first thing the next morning. I had kind of lost track of time at that point. Just sitting by Dad’s bedside all day knowing I couldn’t do anything for him made me forget everything. Wishing Mom was still here was probably the strongest feeling. Memories of the accident flooded back to me. Had it already been ten years since she lay in this same hospital? The semi truck that hit her car had given her a severe concussion and internal bleeding. But I remembered that even with her head bandaged and bruised, she still had this serene look on her face, as if she were almost at the end of that dark tunnel and could hear Jesus calling her name from the light spot at the end. It was only a matter of hours before she died; we knew there was no hope of reviving her. I wasn’t even sure why the doctors bothered hooking her up to all those life-support machines. Even they couldn’t save her.

            “Alvin, why didn’t you get here sooner?” I asked when he arrived, still wearing pale blue scrubs from work. Though his hair had more gray than mine, he still had all of it, which seemed unfair. “You’re the medical expert in the family. I wanted you to talk to the doctors.”

            “Nice to see you too, Frank. How is he?”

            “Stable, I think. They decided against immediate surgery, but recommended a heart cath so they can look around in there.”

            Alvin walked over and checked Dad’s pulse on his neck, looking at his watch. “How long you been here?”

            “Since before lunch.”

            “You should go home now and rest. I’ll stay with him.”

            “I’m not tired.” I sat down in the cold vinyl chair by the window. I looked out at the parking lot, where Alvin’s black Mercedes sat next to my Cadillac. “I still don’t see why you couldn’t get here earlier. It’s only a five-hour drive.”

            “I was in surgery all day, saving people like Dad.”

            “You’re not a cardiologist.”

            He folded his arms and turned toward me. “Doesn’t make what I do any less important.”

            We sat quietly for a long time, and I debated on whether or not to tell him about the trouble I was having at the restaurant. On the one hand, he might give me some advice on how to catch the thief. Sill, it was more likely that he’d accuse me of being careless or blame me for not calling the police by now. Since he was seven years older than me, he had never treated me as an equal. To him, I was always the baby, the youngest brother who was too scared to make his own career so he stayed at home to take care of Mom and Dad’s diner. He’d never said as much to me, but I could see it in his dark green eyes, how they looked beyond me to the boy I once was, falling out of trees while he went on dates. His gaze seemed to say, I know so much more than you, and always will.

            I dozed a little off and on. Sometime before dawn, when the sky outside had turned the palest gray hinting at the coming sunrise, Alvin got up to buy some coffee from the vending machine. He offered to get me some, but I said no. I stared out at the lightening horizon and saw hues of pink, the first color of the day. While he was gone, I must have fallen into a deep sleep because the next thing I knew, the sun was pouring bright yellow light into the small room. It must have been around 8:30. Joseph’s flight would land soon. Someone knocked at the door, and I assumed it would be a nurse, but it creaked open slowly to reveal Misty carrying a foil-covered plate and a card.

            I stood quickly and rubbed my face, hoping the vinyl hadn’t made a print there.

            “I baked you a pound cake,” she said.

            “Thank you,” I answered, spreading my hands to cover the front of my wrinkled khakis. Alvin had stood up too and looked back and forth between us a couple of times.

            “Who’s this?”

            “Oh, Alvin, this is one of my waitresses, Misty. Misty, my brother Alvin.”

            She smiled and her cheeks turned pink. “I would shake your hand, but, you know.” She gestured with the cake.

            “Let me take that,” I said, setting it on the tray table next to the perspiring pitcher of water. I felt Alvin’s eyes follow me as I turned my back.

            “I don’t think I’ve seen you at Claudette’s. How long have you worked there?”

            “About five years now.”

            “I guess it’s been a while since I’ve been home, then.”

            I turned back towards them and Misty said, “Here’s a card. It’s nothing special. It just says how I hope Mr. Brantley feels better real soon. How is he?” She walked over to the bedside. I told her what the night nurses had said. Not much had changed since Alvin arrived. He was stable and sleeping.

            “Is he comfortable?” she asked, brushing her hand across his forehead. She pulled a hairbrush out of her purse and raked it through his hair a couple of times. It was something I never would have thought to do, but he looked better because of it, more presentable. She had never seemed so much like a mother before.

            Misty left soon after that, and I could tell Alvin wanted to ask about her, but I avoided him by claiming I wanted breakfast. Ordinarily, I would have gotten a biscuit and gravy from McDonald’s, but with Dad in the hospital, I figured it was time for me to eat healthier too. The hospital cafeteria served scrambled eggs that moved as one solid rubbery mass when the server scooped some onto a plate. I selected a bunch of grapes and some French toast squares to go alongside the eggs. I ate alone at a table facing the window, pushed the eggs back and forth for a while before piling them onto the French toast as a sandwich.

            Later, Joseph would arrive and I’d have to tell the story again of how Dad had fallen and everything that happened between then and now. I didn’t feel like going through all those details again; reciting them to my brothers made me feel guilty, as if I hadn’t done anything to help. But I had done something; I was there, ready and waiting. As I looked out the window at cars moving slowly in the early morning heat, I realized that much of my life consisted of looking through windows at sunny days filled with people in no hurry to get nowhere. Still, I wanted to be one of them, moving in that brightness.