A Warning Before the Door

By the fourth morning after Harl left, I could sit at the bakery table long enough to sort paper wrappers without my ankle starting to throb.

Clara had set the stack beside my right hand and the finished ones to my left. She said the arrangement was for convenience, though I suspected she had counted how many times I would have to reach. The splint stayed on beneath my loose trouser leg. I kept my foot propped on a stool, as Doctor Pell had instructed.

“Those are crooked,” Clara said from the counter.

I looked down. One wrapper had folded over itself at the corner.

“It’s still usable,” she added. “We aren’t selling geometry.”

I smoothed it out. “I know.”

The mistake was small enough that I could fix it, and Clara had said so without taking it from me. That made the task easier than I expected. I folded the next one slowly, pressing the crease with my thumbnail. Rain tapped the window. The oven warmed the room from the far side, and the smell of a loaf cooling on the rack drifted over the table.

Then the bell over the front door rang.

My hands stopped. The paper crinkled between them.

Clara turned her head toward the sound. “Morning, Chief?”

“Morning,” Miller said. His voice came from near the entrance. “Can I speak with you a moment?”

He didn’t come farther in. Clara wiped her hands on her apron and walked toward him, counting the space by habit. I stayed at the table. I could hear them speaking, but not every word over the rain and the oven’s low hiss.

A pause followed. Then Miller said, “He’s back.”

My shoulders tightened before I could stop them.

Clara answered quietly. “Harl?”

“Yes. He’s at the office. Toby doesn’t need to see him.”

They were talking about me as if I were still outside the room. I was glad they had not brought Harl in. I was also suddenly ashamed of how hard I was listening.

Clara came to my table. “Miller has news. Would you like him to tell you here, or would you rather wait until later?”

“Here,” I said. My voice had come out too thin, so I tried again. “I want to know.”

Clara pulled out the chair across from me. Miller entered only after she told him where I was. He stopped a few steps from the table, leaving the way to the door open.

“Harl came back this morning,” he said. “He’s carrying Brindle’s answer.”