Chapter 10
The students arrived on a bright Thursday morning.
I stood at the factory entrance holding a box of small hard hats. Maria checked names with the teacher while the children crowded around the windows to look inside.
One boy asked if the machines were louder than airplanes. A girl wanted to know who built them.
“Some of the people you’re about to meet,” I told her.
She looked impressed.
For the first time since I had taken charge, I heard laughter carry across the factory floor without wondering who might stop it.
Arthur came for the visit. He let a student ask him why he wore a suit to a factory.
“Because Ethan told me I couldn’t wear my oldest jeans,” he said.
“I said they had a hole in them,” I replied.
The children laughed, and Arthur winked at me.
After the tour, we gathered in the assembly room. Denise had come to speak about the years she worked there. Maria brought out Dad’s photograph from the warehouse, now framed behind glass.
She handed it to me.
“Put it where people can see it,” she said.
I set it beside the entrance, at a height the children could reach. In the picture, Dad had his arm around Maria and me. I still wore that crooked hard hat.
Mom arrived as the students were leaving. She stood back until the last bus pulled away.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she said.
“You could have come in.”
“Next time, I will.”
She followed me to the photograph. Her fingers rested lightly on the frame.
“He would have loved today,” she said.
“I think so.”
We had spent years speaking carefully around Dad’s name. Now we stood together and talked about him as someone we both missed.
Mom told me she had found an apartment ten minutes from Rachel. I offered to help carry her boxes on Saturday. She accepted, then gave me a look.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. I’m glad you’ll be there.”
I was glad too.
That afternoon, the board approved a plan I had worked on with Maria and the fund trustee. We would publish a yearly report on the workers’ fund and give employees a clear way to raise concerns about company spending. The recovered money Richard owed would return to the accounts it came from.
I carried the news down to the factory floor.
People asked practical questions. How would the report be shared? Who would answer claims questions? I told them what I knew and wrote down what I needed to check.
When the shift ended, Maria found me beside the loading dock.
“You’ve been here since seven,” she said.
“So have you.”
“I’m going home.”
“That sounds sensible.”
She gave me a look much like Mom’s. “Your father used to stay too late. We told him when he needed to leave.”
I picked up my coat.
Outside, Denise waited by her car. She had brought me a paper cup of coffee from the gas station down the road.
“Maria said you might still be here,” she said.
I took it. The smell carried me straight back to Saturday mornings with Dad.
“I heard your next appointment went well,” I said.
“It did.” She smiled. “I’m taking my granddaughter to the park this weekend. We’ve got a lot of walks to catch up on.”
I watched her drive away, then walked to my car with the coffee warming my hands.
At home, Mom called to ask what time I could come on Saturday. Rachel shouted from somewhere behind her that she had already labeled every box. I laughed and promised I would be there at nine.
After we hung up, I took Dad’s briefcase from the shelf.
The tape still covered the handle. The letter lay inside with the photograph’s old envelope. I could have bought a new case, but I liked knowing exactly where this one had been.
I opened the letter and read the last line again.
Ask yourself what you would do for the people inside.
Through my window, I could see the lights of the town where I had grown up. Maria would be home with her family. Denise would be planning her walk. Mom had a place of her own and a Saturday moving day with people who loved her.
Tomorrow I would go back to work. There would be decisions to make and people to listen to. I felt ready to walk through the factory doors.
I closed the briefcase and set it beside my keys.
Then I called Mom back.
“I forgot to tell you something,” I said when she answered.
“What is it?”
“I love you.”
She drew a breath. “I love you too, Ethan.”
I stayed on the line a little longer. I could hear Rachel asking her where to put the dishes, and Mom laughing as she answered.
May you like
When we said goodnight, I put the phone down and looked at Dad’s briefcase. For years I had carried it because I was afraid of losing what he left me.
Now I carried it because I knew where I belonged.
