Nate set the copper penny on top of the gray fuse box and wiped his fingers on his canvas pants.

“The county deed came in the mail yesterday,” he said.

“But they won’t turn on the transformer at the pole without a stamped permit.”

“I’ll get the money tomorrow,” I said.

At eight o’clock Monday morning, I stood at the tall Formica counter in the hospital’s human resources office.

Brenda, the head payroll clerk, set her ceramic coffee mug down on a stack of patient discharge ledgers and lowered her reading glasses.

“You have eighty-four hours of vacation time saved up, Emily,” she said.