The blue utility bill for August was thirty-eight dollars higher than the one from July, even though we had kept the air conditioner set at seventy-three degrees all summer. I smoothed the paper flat on the laminate counter, right next to the loaf of rye that was starting to give off the sour, stale smell of yeast from the old wooden breadbox.
Harold reached past my elbow, his thumb leaving a faint smudge of dark grease on the clean form.
“Just grabbing the sports, Clara,” he said, his voice booming in the small kitchen as he rattled the local paper. “Need to see if the high school boys finally won a game, or if they need me to go down there and show them how to hold a bat.”
He jiggled the loose quarters and dimes in his right trouser pocket, a fast, metallic rhythm that always meant he was ready to head out to the garage.
I wiped my hands on the linen dishcloth tucked into my apron string, keeping my eyes on the stack of envelopes.
Underneath the electric bill sat a long, thick envelope from Elmira Title and Escrow, postmarked three days ago.
“What is this one, Harold?” I asked, pointing to the blue emblem in the corner.
“Some junk mail, probably,” he said, not looking up from the box scores. “They want to sell us a warranty on the water heater. They send those out to everyone on the block.”
“It has a file number printed on the front,” I said, my thumb tracing the raised black ink. “Twelve fifty-six slash B.”
Harold laughed, a loud, bark of a sound that did not quite match the stillness of the room.
“They use those numbers to make you open them, Clara, it is an old contractor trick.”
He folded the sports page under his arm and walked toward the back door, the coins in his pocket clinking with every step.
By two in the afternoon, the sky had turned the color of wet asphalt, and I was standing inside the lobby of the First National Bank on Main Street.
My son, Gary, sat behind his low oak desk near the teller window, slowly turning over a tall stack of yellow loan applications.
“I have my Social Security deposit slip, Gary,” I said, sliding the paper across the polished wood.
Gary tapped his silver watch face twice with his index finger, his collar looking just a bit too tight for his throat.
“I can process that right here for you, Mom,” he said, his voice dropping into that formal tone he used whenever he was behind the desk. “We are actually running some system updates this week, so you might get a few odd notices in the mail.”
“Odd notices?” I asked.
“Just automated letters, standard system errors,” Gary said, keeping his eyes on his computer screen. “If anything from the bank or the county clerk shows up, you should just ignore it for now.”
“I received something from a title company this morning,” I said.
Gary stopped shuffling his papers, his hand freezing over a mortgage folder.
“Which company?” he asked.
“Elmira Title,” I said, wiping my palms on my coat pockets. “It was quite heavy.”
“Do not open it,” Gary said, looking up with a quick, tight smile. “It is just a marketing campaign for the new home equity lines. I will clear it up on our end.”
At six, the streetlights were just flickering on when I reached Martha’s apartment on Elm Street.
My sister, Martha, poured the Earl Grey into two chipped porcelain cups, her heavy glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose as she leaned forward.
“You have too much paper on those counters, Clara,” Martha said, adjusting her frames with one finger. “A kitchen should be for cooking, not for storing Harold’s late notices.”
“Harold says they are just advertisements,” I said, holding the warm mug between my hands.
“Harold was at the bank at nine o’clock last Tuesday night,” Martha said, her voice dropping to a sharp whisper. “The library closed at eight, and I saw his truck parked right by the side entrance while the night cleaning crew was there.”
“He was probably helping Gary with something in the office,” I said.
“Gary’s office is on the first floor, Clara, and the lights on that side were completely dark.”
The tea tasted bitter, and I left the rest of it in the cup.
When I got home at nine, the television was buzzing in the living room, casting a blue glow over the hallway carpet.
I stood at the kitchen sink, letting the hot water run over the dinner plates while Harold watched a replay of the baseball game.
“Harold,” I called out over the sound of the running water. “I was looking at the ledger for our savings account.”
“Do not tell me we are broke,” he shouted back, his voice boisterous as he laughed at a commercial. “I thought you were the one keeping the books.”
“We are short four thousand dollars from the July balance,” I said, my voice soft but clear. “I just need to know why the bank sent this to my name only, Harold.”
He walked into the kitchen, his hand already deep in his pocket, the coins rattling against each other.
“The riding mower needed a new transmission, Clara,” he said, leaning against the refrigerator. “The guy down in Southport charged me for the parts and the labor, and you know how those repair shops are.”
“A transmission is eight hundred dollars, Harold, not four thousand.”
“Well, there were taxes, and I had him grease the joints on the tractor too,” he said, turning his back to look at the stove.
I turned off the faucet, the kitchen suddenly falling into a silence so heavy I could hear the hum of the refrigerator.
The title company envelope was still sitting on the counter, but now that the kitchen light was directly above it, I could see the printed address line clearly through the plastic window.
The letter was not addressed to Harold and Clara.
It was addressed to Clara Miller, with no mention of my husband at all.
Clara stares at the white envelope tucked beneath the heavy wooden knife block.
Martha adjusted her heavy glasses by the bridge, squinting at a small tin of ground nutmeg before setting it into the plastic trash bowl. I wiped the greasy yellow film from the cabinet door above the stove, using my linen dishcloth until my shoulder ached.
“This bread box has been in the corner since ninety-two,” I said, nodding toward the wooden box on the counter.
“It smells like it,” Martha said, her voice carrying its usual sarcastic edge.
She reached behind the base of the pine box, her fingers dragging out a small slip of pink paper from the narrow gap between the wood and the backsplash.
“You missed a spot,” she said, holding the paper out.
It was a receipt for an unregistered letter from the Elmira post office, dated August fourteenth, stamped with faded blue ink.
“Who is this from?” Martha asked.
“There is no sender name on the receipt,” I said, looking at the registration number. “Just a fee of seven dollars and forty cents.”
“Harold does not write letters,” Martha said, adjusting her glasses again. “He does not even write Christmas cards.”
Martha was wearing her green cardigan, the one with the stretched pockets where she kept her reading glasses. She was sixty-two, but she moved with the slow, deliberate care of someone ten years older.
“There is grease behind this toaster, Clara,” she said, using her fingernail to scrape at the counter seam. “You used to be more particular.”
“I have had other things on my mind,” I said.
She picked up the pink slip again, holding it close to her eyes.
“The postmark is from the downtown branch,” Martha said. “Why would Harold send a registered letter to someone and not keep the copy of the letter itself?”
“He said it was for the lumber yard,” I said, though the words felt thin even to me.
“The lumber yard closed its Elmira office last winter,” Martha said, setting the slip down next to the bread box. “They only operate out of Binghamton now.”
