“Elena would have liked tonight,” she said.
George looked at the towel in his hands. “She would’ve liked the food. She’d have told me the potatoes needed more salt.”
“They did.”
He laughed. Then he looked through the doorway at Sadie, who had fallen asleep on the sofa with the paper turkey beside her.
“I keep thinking we should be past missing her so much,” he admitted.
Mrs. Moreno shut off the faucet. “Why?”
“It’s been two years.”
“It’s been two years since you last saw her. It hasn’t been two years since she mattered.”
George absorbed the distinction. He had expected grief to follow a schedule, like rent or the delivery truck. In reality it came in waves, sometimes triggered by a handwriting sample in a notebook, sometimes by a holiday dish, sometimes by an ordinary sentence said in a familiar way.
Mrs. Moreno dried her hands. “You’re allowed to be happy tonight and still miss her. Both can fit in one room.”
George looked toward the window. Across the courtyard, the lights in the other apartments glowed warm against early darkness. He could see families through curtains, moving around tables and kitchens. He did not know what worries lived in those rooms. The thought that each household contained its own invisible burdens made him feel less alone.
When he carried Sadie home later, he did it carefully and only the short distance across the hall. His knee protested, but she was light and asleep, one hand resting on his shoulder.
At their door he stopped and put her down gently. She woke enough to ask, “Did we have a good Thanksgiving?”
“Yeah, pumpkin,” he said. “We did.”
She smiled without opening her eyes.
He unlocked the door and brought her inside. On the kitchen shelf, Elena’s blue notebook waited among the recipe cards. He set a small portion of leftovers in the refrigerator and added a new page to the notebook.
Third Thanksgiving. Good potatoes. A little more salt next year.
Chapter Thirty: When the Highway Closed
The winter storm reached Oak Haven just after dawn on a Monday.
Snow came first, heavy and wet, collecting on power lines and the branches of trees that had not quite lost their leaves. Then the temperature fell, turning the surface roads hard and slick. Trucks backed up on the state highway. Delivery schedules dissolved. School canceled classes, and local repair shops began calling for heating parts before breakfast.
George had already made a plan for the day. Sadie would stay with Mrs. Moreno while he worked a shorter shift from the office. Paul had agreed. But at seven-thirty the store’s telephone began ringing so steadily that Janelle could barely answer it before another call arrived.
A school maintenance supervisor needed a specific circulation pump to restore heat in an older wing of the high school. A small church needed a pipe fitting for a burst line. Three contractors wanted generators the store did not have. Everyone insisted their problem was the most urgent.
George sorted the calls by what the store could actually do. He did not promise impossible deliveries. He checked stock, called suppliers, and asked Janelle to keep a written list of confirmed orders separate from requests they could not fill.
At ten the highway closure delayed a small shipment of plumbing parts. The trucker called from a service station thirty miles away, apologizing. He had been told not to proceed until the road was cleared.
“Don’t come through if it’s unsafe,” George said. “We’ll work with what we’ve got.”
The trucker sounded relieved. “You’re the first person all morning who didn’t ask me to drive faster.”
George turned to the inventory system. He found one of the circulation pumps in a return category because the box had been damaged but the unit itself had never been installed. He asked Victor to verify the model and condition. Victor located it in a locked storage area. They checked the part number, the manufacturer’s documentation, and the missing accessory that would need to be supplied separately.
The school supervisor arrived an hour later, tired and worried about getting heat restored before the students returned. George explained the pump’s condition honestly and made sure the customer had the correct components and warranty information before approving the sale.
“If this works,” the man said, “you’ll have saved me a terrible day.”
“If it doesn’t,” George answered, “call me. We’ll work the problem.”
By midafternoon the store had become a small center of practical problem-solving. Customers came for weather stripping, salt, replacement parts, and advice. Paul made coffee in a large pot and told anyone who looked too cold to sit by the space heater until they were ready to leave. Janelle worked the register, Victor handled the loading bay with two assistants, and George kept the orders straight from the back office.
At four o’clock a transformer failure darkened the lights for a moment. The backup lamps came on. George heard a shout from the receiving bay and instinctively started to rise. His knee flared and he caught himself on the desk.
