Part 2:
The word mistaken landed in the room like a thrown rock. Ryan felt his face go hot. Not from anger exactly, from something colder than anger, from the recognition of a thing being done to him. He turned back to Martin. Martin, I didn’t take those crates. I know you didn’t, Ryan. Then why are we having this conversation? Because it’s not up to me.
Martin finally pushed a piece of paper across the desk. It was a termination notice, already signed by someone in HR whose signature Ryan didn’t recognize. The reason for termination was listed as pending investigation, loss of corporate property, probable cause. The insurance company is driving this, Martin said, and corporate.
They want somebody off the payroll while the investigation runs. If it clears, you might be able to come back. If If Ryan Martin I have a kid. I know. I have a 7-year-old daughter and her mother’s been gone for 4 years and I have rent due on the 15th. Ryan, I know. I know all of it. I’m sorry. You’re sorry. I’m sorry. Ryan looked at the termination notice.
His name was spelled correctly. His employee ID was correct. The date was correct. Everything about it was correct except for the part where it said he had done something he had not done. He thought about his daughter, Emma. He thought about the fact that he’d promised her a new pair of boots this weekend because her old ones had a hole in the toe and she was too proud to say anything about it, but he’d noticed her stuffing a folded up napkin into the toe last Thursday morning before school.
He thought about the $42 in his wallet. He picked up the pen off Martin’s desk and signed the notice. Ryan What, Martin? I really am sorry. Yeah. He stood up. Carl was still against the wall. Ryan walked past him close enough that their shoulders almost touched. Carl didn’t move. Ryan didn’t look at him. At the door he stopped.
Carl? Yeah. Your lanyard’s showing. Carl’s hand went to his collar before he could stop it. He felt the lanyard under his shirt, the key tucked against his chest. He looked at Ryan. Ryan looked at him. Neither of them said anything. Ryan walked out. The parking lot was the kind of cold that went through cloth.
Ryan stood next to his truck for a minute without opening the door. His truck was a 2003 Ford Ranger with 214,000 mi on it, and the driver’s side door didn’t latch right anymore. And there was a crack in the windshield that ran from the bottom right corner up to about the middle, where it stopped for now.
He’d bought it off a guy in Rutland for $1,200 3 years ago, and it was the second most expensive thing he owned. The first was Emma’s mattress. He got in. He sat. He didn’t turn the key. The sun was just starting to come up over the Green Mountains, which meant the whole sky was that specific October color that was the color of an old bruise.
The mountains looked farther away than they were. Everything did that morning. He thought about calling his sister. His sister lived in Phoenix and they talked once every three or four months, and the last time they’d talked she’d said, “If you ever need anything, Ry.” And he’d said, “I know, I know.
” And he’d meant it, and she’d meant it, and he was not going to call her. He thought about calling Emma’s grandmother, his mother-in-law Rosa, who lived on the other side of town in a small house that smelled like cinnamon and laundry soap, and who loved Emma more than she’d ever loved anyone in her life. Rosa had offered more than once to help.
He’d never taken her up on it because Rosa lived on a fixed income, and he wasn’t going to be the the who took money from his dead wife’s mother. He thought about his wife, about Marlene, about the fact that she’d been gone 4 years and 3 months and he still sometimes reached for the other side of the bed. He turned the key.
The truck coughed. He let it warm up for a minute before he put it in gear. He drove home the long way through downtown because he wasn’t ready yet to tell Emma. It was a quarter past 7:00 when he saw the woman at the bus stop. The bus stop on Chestnut and Vine wasn’t a real bus stop anymore.
The route had been cut in 2019 when the town council redid the budget. There was still a sign and a bench and a little plastic roof over it, but no bus came there now. Ryan sometimes forgot that and then remembered and thought it was kind of sad the way a thing could stay in place long after it had stopped meaning anything.
The woman was sitting on the bench. She had a small suitcase next to her, black, the expensive kind with the recessed wheels. She was wearing a wool coat that looked warm but not warm enough and a pair of leather gloves and her hair was pulled back in a way that had started out neat and gotten messier through the night. She was maybe 30.
She was looking at her phone. Ryan drove past her. Then he slowed down. Then about a block later he pulled over. He sat in his truck for a second. Come on, Ryan, he said to himself out loud. Just go home. He didn’t go home. He made a U-turn at the next light and came back and pulled up in front of the bus stop and rolled down the passenger window.
