“I’ll sign anything true.”
She looked down.
“If your attorney writes that I paid voluntarily, that is true. If he writes that I was not the responsible party of record, that is false.”
She read the pages.
Actually read them.
I picked up my clipboard.
“I have eleven carts missing.”
Then I went back to work.
The magistrate ruled for the school.
$13,833 plus costs.
Rolene received a payment plan.
Marcel transferred to public school in January.
Later I heard he joined the track team.
I never saw him again after the Bob Evans parking lot.
In March, I paid Seaggraves the entire remaining judgment myself.
Directly to the school.
$13,833.
I didn’t tell Rolene.
She found out later.
I didn’t do it for her.
I did it because an eleven-year-old had packed his locker on a Wednesday in the middle of the school year, and some part of that outcome belonged on my side of the ledger.
Willadine now pays her own condo expenses.
It is difficult on her Social Security and part-time fabric-store income.
She has never asked me to resume the payments.
She has never apologized either.
At Christmas, she sent me a card.
Just her signature.
Nothing else.
I understood it.
It was not an apology.
It was acknowledgment.
Buffford continued living in the condo for a while.
I returned to my route.
Four in the morning.
Coffee in the dark.