“It’s just a number.”

“It’s a mortgage payment and then some.”

“You quit on me two weeks ahead of tire season.”

“I gave you three weeks.

In writing, too.”

“You handed me a letter on a Monday morning and stood there while I read it.” He moved his belt buckle one notch.

“I gave you a key to this place.

I gave you the code to the safe.” He said it like a man reading off a list of things that had been stolen from him.

Then he turned his back on me and started sorting invoices that were already in order.

I counted the top three.

August.

August.

August.

I stood there long enough to hear the compressor kick on out in the bay.