She put her hand flat on the open book.

“He would not send anybody home.

Not once in twenty-eight years.

He’d get up from that desk, and he’d walk down here, and he’d stand there in his shirtsleeves, and he’d sign.”

I looked at the signature from 1998.

The same narrow letters.

The same crooked tail on the last one.

Twenty-six years before I ever handed that man a coffee.