The Six Days Before

Saturday evening, Maggie sent Elizabeth to the drugstore for aspirin.

Raymond had stopped coughing hard enough to bend over, but he had not stopped. The quiet between spells made Hattie watch him more closely. He sat at the kitchen table with the towel around his shoulders and the red truck in both hands, pushing it an inch, stopping, pushing it again. The vaporizer rattled by the window. Steam collected on the glass and ran down in thin crooked lines.

Maggie counted twelve cents from the maintenance coins and folded them into the grocery receipt.

“Aspirin,” she said.

Elizabeth took the receipt.

“And the stamp.”

“I know.”

Maggie did not let go of the paper right away. Her eyes went to Elizabeth’s purse. “You keep your own money separate.”

“It is.”

Maggie released the receipt.

The Cedar House envelope was in the inside pocket of Elizabeth’s purse, away from the house money and away from the comb and powder tin. She had counted it twice after the Hargrove call.

Three dollars and one cent.

Two dollars and eighty-seven from Pine Court. Fourteen cents from the Biltmore suitcase lining. The exact amount. Not enough to live on. Enough to stand at Mrs. Doyle’s desk Monday and not have money be the first reason she failed.

She put the aspirin money in the outside pocket and buttoned her coat.

Outside, the sidewalks were wet under the store lights. Saturday moved slower after rain. Men stood under awnings finishing cigarettes. Women came out of the five-and-ten with paper bags held high against puddle splash. A boy on a bicycle rode too close to the curb and sent dirty water over his own shoe. He looked down at it, furious, then kept pedaling.

The drugstore was warm enough to smell of wool drying on strangers.

A man in a dark gray coat stood at the prescription counter, waiting while the pharmacist checked a charge in his ledger. “Dr. Arden,” the pharmacist said, “that’s the second time this week.” The man studied the figures, thanked him without apologizing, and put the small wrapped packet into his coat. Elizabeth noticed him only because he held up the line and nobody complained to his face.

The aspirin was behind the counter. The girl at the register wore glasses with red marks pressed into the sides of her nose. Her hairnet had slipped at one temple, and she pushed it back with the heel of her hand before she took Maggie’s twelve cents.