Chapter 17: Making amends

Jeff Henderson walked into Swiggett's General Store, pulling a red wagon loaded with canned goods and other items he'd shoplifted.

At the cash register, Mabel looked up from Modern Romance and chuckled. "Fred," she called. "You're going to want to come out here."

"What am I supposed to do with this stuff?" Fred said peevishly, looming over the boy. He examined a can of beans. "Nobody's going to want to buy this, banged up the way it is."

Jeff hung his head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Fred."

"Now, Fred," said Mabel. "What about that day-old shelf you said you were thinking of starting, like the one at the Acme in Wilford?"

"I did, didn't I?" Fred said, smoothing his hair. "Mabel, you know the boy's building a bomb shelter?"

"Not building," Jeff corrected him. "Just stocking the root cellar, you know, in case of nuclear attack."

"Well, that's a smart idea," Fred said, patting Jeff's head awkwardly, adding, "son."

Jeff shrugged, flushing with discomfort. He wondered if Fred would expect to be called "Dad" now that it was official he was marrying his mother.

"Your mom says you're willing to work off the damage," Fred said, hands on his hips, gazing around. "So what are we going to do with you?"

"Floor could use sweeping," Mabel said.

"That's a good start. When you're done, you can wash the windows. I'm going out for a while. Mabel, get the boy what he needs."

"Don't let him bother you none," Mabel told Jeff. "Fred means well, but sometimes he's full of hot air. Let's find that broom." She stopped at the soda cooler. "Sweeping's going to raise a lot of dust. We better get you a pop first."

ALLIE AND JOHN TURNER rattled along Route 9 in Pop's pickup, headed back to town under the gunmetal November sky. "Country folks don't have many choices, and you want to take away one of the only ways they can survive," Allie said.

"I don't make the labor laws," Turner said.

"Maybe they need changing. In the city, dogs are kept on a leash. Out here they run free. If they have different laws for dogs, shouldn't there be different ones for people?"

"That's easy to say," Turner countered.

"Fact is, some creatures need leashing no matter where they are."

Rounding a bend in the road, Allie downshifted and slowed. "What makes you so sure that people like Pop are always trying to break the rules?"

"Experience."

"Prejudice, I'd say."

"I've got my reasons."

"What? You didn't get a raise once?" Turner looked out the window. "I wish it were as simple as that," he said softly.

"Maybe you're just jealous."

Turner didn't answer. He pulled out his wallet, removed a yellowed newspaper clipping and held it up for her to see.

Allie winced at the grainy image of four burly men pummeling a man whose jacket had been yanked over his head.

"That was taken May 26, 1937, outside Henry Ford's River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Union organizers had a permit to hand out leaflets. Ford's hired thugs jumped them."

"But why ... ?" Allie began.

"The man in the middle is my father."

"That's horrible," she said, reaching out and touching his arm.

He pulled it away. "I didn't show you for sympathy — for me or him. You wanted to know why I don't trust bosses. That's why," he said, returning the photo to his wallet.

"Not paying a decent wage may not be as bad as beating someone to a pulp, but it's not right. And it keeps people down."

"I'm sorry about your father," Allie said. "But Pop's not like that."

"You do what you have to," Allie said, standing on the platform outside Pop's office with Turner. "But first I want you to know the kind of boss Pop is." She removed the padlock and led him into the storeroom.

Turner smelled the dying wreaths before he saw the piles.

"What is this?" Turner asked.

"Tammy's wreaths," Allie said. "And the wreaths of all the other folks you've met here in Tennyson. Nobody wants them, so Pop hides them in here, and pays them out of his own pocket."

"Why doesn't he fold?"

"Because people depend on him. I don't know how it is in the city, but here we look out for each other."

"They'd understand," Turner said. "Times change."

"But he can't," Allie said.

Without thinking, Turner reached out to comfort her, then caught himself, and dropped his arm by his side.

Next chapter: A hot tip