When Gordon returned that winter, I discovered how quickly a familiar voice could make me doubt my own notes. He hung up his coat, asked after the work, and sat at the desk as though the intervening weeks were a stack of papers to be moved aside. I watched him find a folder without checking its label. I still checked every label twice.
We had arranged a routine handoff of the work I had covered. I brought a list with unfinished items at the top, completed items beneath, and questions on a separate page. The unfamiliar account was not something I raised in that conversation. Della had received it from me; she had told me she contacted law enforcement. I had nothing new to add to that exchange.
Gordon scanned the unfinished list. “You could have left more of this for me.”
“Some of it couldn't wait.”
“It usually feels that way when you're filling in.” He turned a page. “Where did you put the supporting papers for this one?”
I showed him. He opened the folder, found the page he wanted, and tapped its edge against the desk to straighten it. His ease irritated me, then embarrassed me. Experience ought to look like ease. I had no grounds for treating an ordinary gesture as a clue, and no right to make his confidence prove anything in either direction.
We came to a notation I had marked for clarification. He told me how he ordinarily handled that item and reached for the next page. I kept my hand on the list.
“I need to write that down before we move on.”
“It's just the usual way.”
“It wasn't usual to me.”
He waited while I wrote. It was a small resistance, scarcely worth describing, except that I had so often let “usual” stand in for an instruction. When I finished, I read back what I understood. He corrected one point. I changed it and gave him the folder. The work passed back without an argument, though I left the desk feeling as if I had made one.
Later that week, I met Beverly Sloane outside while I was carrying groceries home. We had known each other long enough that she asked after Otis before asking about city work. The cold made both of us keep shifting the bags in our hands, but she had something she wanted to say and wasn't going to surrender it to the weather.
“Do you know when they're going to get to the maintenance people keep asking about?” she said.
“I don't handle those decisions.”
“I know. I'm asking whether you hear anything.”
I began the answer I had used before: money was tight, there was only so much to go around. Beverly tilted her head before I finished. She wasn't angry in any dramatic way. She looked like a woman who had heard a familiar explanation and wanted to know whether it contained information.
“Is that what you've been told,” she asked, “or is it just what we all say?”
A bag handle cut into my fingers. I shifted it to my other hand and tried to remember the last time I had actually asked why a particular piece of work was delayed. I could remember general talk about constraints. I could remember repeating it. Those were not the same as knowing the answer to Beverly's question.
“It's what I've said,” I admitted. “I don't have enough information to tell you that's the reason.”
“Well, that's different.”
“Different from helpful, too.”
“I didn't ask you to make the money appear.” She lifted her own bag. “I'd like to know when an answer is an answer.”
I could have retreated into how busy everyone was. I knew the sentences and could have delivered them without effort. Instead, I told her I couldn't give her a reliable explanation and that she should take the specific question to the city rather than rely on me in passing. It sounded less friendly than reassurance. She nodded anyway, then asked whether Otis was still fixing tools in his garage.
We talked another minute before separating. At home, I put the groceries away and found a carton had leaked inside its bag. While I wiped the counter, I thought about how many times I had defended an arrangement simply because I worked within it. I still had no explanation for the account. Now I had given up one explanation for everything else, and the next person who asked would have to hear that I didn't know.