“June isn’t here again,” Victor said.
Sal glanced at the clock above the church hall door. “She gets off work at seven.”
“Then perhaps Thursday isn’t a good night for her.”
There were six of them around the table. Victor had put his coat over the empty chair beside him. Nobody had asked him to save it. He had done so every Thursday for a month, and every Thursday the coat stayed there.
At seventy-one, he disliked changes that made a room feel emptier. His wife had died in March. The study group had kept its Thursday meeting, its tin of crackers, and Sal’s habit of reading a passage twice. Victor could count on those things.
Tonight they were discussing the Good Samaritan. Sal had just reached the wounded traveler when June came in wearing her grocery store apron.
“Sorry. A customer broke a jar at closing.” She stopped beside Victor’s coat. “Is this seat taken?”
He snatched the coat away. “By you, if you ever get here.”
June sat without laughing. She was nineteen, but there was nothing young about the way she rubbed her feet beneath the table.
Sal went back to the reading. In the story, two travelers had passed an injured man. Another had stopped and paid for his care. Victor liked the plainness of it: see a need, do something.
“You have to make time,” he said when Sal finished. “That’s the point. We all have things to do.”
June looked at him. “Are we talking about the traveler or my shift?”
“Both, perhaps.”
“My rent isn’t a perhaps.”
Sal closed her book for a moment. She had to catch the eight-fifteen bus, and she had no wish to spend the evening in an argument. But she did not hurry past June’s answer.
“Tell us what getting here costs,” she said.
June drew her apron string through her fingers. Her grocery store closed at seven. Alma, who worked the earlier shift, could cover June’s last half-hour on Thursdays. But Alma finished her own shift at five and had to collect a food box from this same church. Packing and the queue often kept her there until six-thirty, when pickup ended. By then she couldn’t cross town in time to cover June’s shift.
“Couldn’t someone keep the food table open later?” Victor asked.
Sal shook her head. “The volunteers leave for jobs and children. Some come straight from work. We can’t give away their time.”
“There must be somebody.”
“There may be,” Sal said. “Who?”
Victor reached for a cracker. It broke in his hand. He had eaten dinner at four and watched the news until it was time to walk over. There had been a long, quiet hour between those things.
June was looking at the book, not at him.
“I don’t need you to fix my job,” she said. “I need to come late without everyone deciding I don’t care. And maybe hear what I missed.”
Sal pushed the open book toward her. “You missed the reading. We haven’t reached an answer.”
“I thought I had,” Victor said.
June’s mouth moved a little. It wasn’t quite a smile.
They discussed the innkeeper next. He had been paid to do work. June said she liked that part. The helper hadn’t simply told him to be generous with rooms that cost money to keep.
Victor began to answer, then looked at Sal. She was waiting to hear June finish.
“Could I help at the food table?” he asked.
Sal studied him. “We need someone to pack the boxes before pickup. Have you worked there before?”
“No.”
“Then come at five next week. I can show you. We can pack Alma’s box first, if she agrees to collect it early.”
June took out her phone. “I’ll ask her. She may have another reason.”
Alma’s reply came before the bus was due. She could come at five-fifteen and cover the store till seven. She wanted June to take her first half-hour on Saturday in return.
“That’s fair,” June said. “I’ll do it.”
Victor had imagined thanks. June was already planning her Saturday shift. He finished his broken cracker.
The next Thursday, he arrived at five carrying bread he had meant to eat for supper. Sal showed him where the boxes went. He put canned peaches in the wrong bag, corrected it, and spent ten minutes looking for the roll of tape under his own elbow.
Alma arrived in a hurry. She thanked him, took her box, and left for the store. The room did not grow quiet after she left. More people came. One wanted a box with no heavy cans because she had to walk home.
By seven, Victor was hungry and his back hurt. Sal gave him a bowl of soup in the kitchen. He ate it standing, then carried a chair into the hall.
June arrived at seven-ten. The swap had helped, but the bus from the store had still been late. Victor moved his coat before she reached the table.
“We’re reading the same passage again,” he said. “You haven’t missed it.”
She took out her book. He had been thinking all week about the traveler who stopped. Now he wanted to know what June thought about the people who walked past.
“Maybe one of them was afraid,” she said.
“That’s no excuse.” The words came out before he meant them to.
June leaned back. “I didn’t say it was. I said maybe he was afraid.”
Victor looked down at the page. Beside him, her work shoes rested flat on the floor.
“Go on,” he said.
Loading comments…