Becky’s eyes were hot but she pretended they weren’t. “Okay, yeah.”
“Good luck, Becky. Congratulations.”
Becky thanked her, and escaped.
Later that night, she opened the gift, which turned out to be one of those little books of wisdom for graduates and a long typed letter. Becky read the letter as fast as she could, skimming it, unable to take in all that Ms. Marner had written: how much she valued Becky as a student and a person, and how gladdening it was to see her succeed. That she hadn’t meant to get pushy and was sorry if she had offended. That Becky reminded her of herself at that age, and perhaps seeing the potential in such a talented female math student had caused her to get overinvolved. She wished Becky all the success in the world.
Becky folded up the letter, put it in the silly gift book, and tucked both in the bottom of a drawer under a pile of jeans. She didn’t throw either away until years later. But she only ever let herself read the letter that one time, on graduation night.
3
Pierson
1983
When she caught the discrepancy in a refund from Golden Fuel & Oil on a Friday afternoon in September, Becky paid attention. She was the sole female employee in Bookkeeping and the only one under twenty-five—she’d been technically seventeen when they’d hired her but a tacit silence on this was agreed by all—so mostly she strived to fit in, to hide her natural affinity for columns of numbers. Every once in a while, cued by a sudden pause in the droning chunk-chunk of Freddie’s machine on the desk facing hers, she would even waste several minutes tapping buttons with the eraser of her pencil, the way she’d noticed others doing it.
$542. She knew instantly there was no need for this refund. Although occasionally a company would credit Town Hall a future month on the rare chance they paid ahead by accident, most preferred to refund, to keep the books even. She herself had filled out this particular amount on the oversized pale green watermarked check sheet for Accounting to sign off on, one of dozens of payments she and Freddie processed every day.
Still, Becky pulled Golden’s accounts and paged back, comparing months of charges. Golden had had the town contract for years—not only the schools and library, but also Community Bank and the Historic Center. No doubled payment that she could find. So where was this $542, marked “Paid to City of Pierson,” supposed to go?
Becky took the check and the current Golden book down the hall to Accounting. She hesitated outside her boss Jim Frantzen’s door, which was closed, emphatically closed and not balanced ajar on a half-latch, which meant technically here but for Christ’s sake don’t come in. Who else could she ask? No to Bob P., definitely no to Gary—last week he’d fingered the hem of her jacket and whispered that a tighter fit flattered a girl more—and no to nice white-haired Mr. Kaplan, unfortunately, who had apparently left early for the weekend.
Becky completed a lap of the offices on floor three, painfully aware of the secretaries who eyed her uncertain progress and said nothing, stuck at their desks until five even if their bosses had already gone. Finally she turned into the break room. Dingy Formica counters, a wheezing fridge, the permanent odors of burnt coffee and tuna fish salad. To her surprise, one of the two HR reps—Mr. Fine, who had processed her hire—was at the single round table, turning newspaper pages. Becky hesitated a moment—Mr. Fine had been at the staff presentation last week and hadn’t seemed pleased with her after—but then she forged ahead.
“I’m glad to see you,” Becky began. “Can you help me figure out who I should—” She fumbled to unfold the check sheet and to find the right page in the account book, but before she could finish Mr. Fine scowled and slapped his paper shut. Ropy strands of colorless hair stuck to his bulbous head.
“Ask your supervisor.”
“I would, but he—”
“Miss Farwell, I was under the impression that you were mature enough to handle the simple responsibilities of your job. Input the debit, input the credit. Calculate the difference. Balance the books. Are you saying that’s too difficult for you?”
Becky tightened her hold on the check. “No.”
“Well, then.”
The gleam of ice in Mr. Fine’s widely stretched smile made Becky back away. She was almost at the door when he called her.
“A word of advice, Miss Farwell? No one likes a Goody-Two-shoes. Think twice before proposing ‘A New Method.’” Becky flinched at the title of her failed presentation. “When the grownups have had things pretty well in hand since before you—”
“Absolutely, Mr. Fine. I appreciate it.” Her arms tingled, but her back was straight and her voice was steady, reassuring, complicit. This was no different from her years of dealing with patronizing agribusiness suppliers on the phone. She knew what threatened looked like, how it smelled.
She smoothly tucked the check away, out of sight, then pinned Albert Fine with a merciless smile, held the eye contact an extra beat. His bony ringless hand, his lingering in the break room at 4:45 on a Friday. The careful hopeless combing of his disappearing hair . . . Becky took it all in, so he could see, and let pity soak through her smile until she could feel his soul shrivel. Then she turned sharply and left.
She could barely hear herself going through the “goodbye, nice weekend” routine with Freddie and a few other coworkers over the Klaxon fury in her head. Still, she managed to straighten her desk, cover her typewriter, replace the Golden ledger on its shelf. And tuck the mystery check under an extra sweater in her bottom drawer.
The next morning, Becky woke before dawn, listening to the repeated four-note song of the mourning dove. Although she’d repainted in soft peach with cream accents, there was no disguising her childhood bedroom. Her books stood on the shelves where her dolls had once been propped, and her blouses and skirts hung on the splintery wood dowel that still held traces of her junior-high-era perfume. Through the gap in the curtains she watched the top branch of the front-yard cottonwood wave in the same motion and at the same cadence as it had the last eighteen years.
A terrible thumping came from the stairs. Becky went cold, couldn’t move. But then she heard a strangled cry and raced from the room. Her father sprawled sideways, his robe askew and one arm twisted behind his back.
“Holy god, Daddy. You gave me a heart attack.” She strained to right him, arms around his waist. They sat on the stairs, her father breathing hard. “You okay? Yeah?” She swiped a piece of his hair back, relieved to see his mild smile return. He was abashed, and so at least a little aware.
The strokes had come in tiny rapid bursts, the first series last winter, undetected except for slightly increased confusion, forgetting—keys put through the dishwasher, the lost name of a church pastor. The next two events had been unmissable, bringing about as they did stumbling, a frozen right arm, and a loss of language that bordered on muteness. He did okay at home, for the most part, but Becky wondered for how much longer. And then what. When she pictured a fall like this morning’s on a weekday when she was gone—and him with a broken leg or back, in agony for hours, alone . . .
They were due in Champaign-Urbana for an 11 am appointment. “So now we have something to tell the doctor. How about some eggs before we go?”