“Rachel,” she said. “Mike wants you in his office.”
“Why?”
“Right now. He asked me to cover your register.”
My stomach tightened.
“Lori, am I in trouble?”
She hesitated.
Then she squeezed my arm.
“Just go, sweetheart.”
I walked toward the manager’s office with a thousand possibilities racing
through my mind.
Maybe someone had complained about yesterday.
Maybe paying for that woman’s diapers had violated company policy badly enough to get me fired.
Maybe my cash drawer had been short.
Maybe corporate was looking for an excuse to reduce staff.
I couldn’t lose my job.
Not with Mom’s medication and the electric bill.
Not with my car barely running.
By the time I reached Mike’s office, my palms were damp.
I knocked.
“Come in.”
Mike was sitting behind his desk with a plain white envelope under his folded hands.
His reading glasses rested on his forehead.
He didn’t look angry.
He looked unsettled.
“Close the door, Hale.”
I obeyed.
“Sit down.”
I stayed standing.
“Mike, if this is about the woman yesterday, I know I shouldn’t have done it. But she had two babies, and she couldn’t afford the diapers, and I used my own card—”
“Hale.”
“I
didn’t take anything from the register, so I thought—”
“Rachel.”
I stopped.
Mike almost never used my first name.
He studied me carefully.
“Yesterday, you helped a young woman with twin boys, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“She couldn’t pay for everything, and you covered the difference?”
“Yes.”
He glanced at the envelope.
Then held it out.
“She returned after your shift ended.”
I stared.
“She came back?”
“Just after ten. She asked me to give you this.”
On the front, written neatly, were the words:
For Rachel, the cashier at register three. Please.
The final word had been underlined twice.
I accepted the envelope.
It felt unexpectedly heavy.
“She asked about you,” Mike continued.
“What about me?”
“First, she wanted your full name. I told her I couldn’t give out employees’ personal information.”
He paused.
“Then she asked whether your father’s name was Tom.”
My heart seemed to stop.
“What?”
Inside was a silver wristwatch.
Dark face.
Cracked brown leather strap.
A tiny scratch across the number four.
I knew that scratch.
When I was little, I’d sat on my father’s lap and traced it with my fingertip while he told me stories about the places he’d traveled.
