I paid it from my deployment savings. Thirteen hundred and twelve dollars and forty-six cents. Brenda stamped the receipt PAID IN FULL in blue ink and handed it to me.
A real receipt. Printed. With a county seal.
I sat in my rented Corolla in the courthouse parking lot for a long time afterward. I held that receipt in one hand and Ray’s spiral notebook receipt in the other.
Then I drove to my uncle’s house.
Chapter Ten: Supper
Ray and Sheila lived in a brick split-level out on County Road H, on three acres. Sheila worked as a receptionist at the dentist’s office in St. Robert. Their kids were grown and gone. One in Springfield, one in the Army at Fort Leonard Wood.
The white Ram was parked in the driveway. Ray was sitting on the front steps when I pulled in. Like he’d been waiting.
He didn’t get up. He watched me walk across the yard. I could tell from his face he knew.
I held out the county receipt.
“Paid in full,” I said. “Thirteen hundred twelve dollars and forty-six cents. Fourth Monday in August, they would have sold Grandma’s taxes to a stranger.”
He took the receipt. He looked at it for a long time.
“I was going to pay it,” he said. “I swear to God, Hunter. I was going to pay it in January. Then the truck payment came. And then I was going to pay it in February. And then I thought, I’ll get a job by spring, and I’ll pay it, and she’ll never know.”
“You gave her a fake receipt.”
“I know.”
“Out of a spiral notebook.”
“I know.” He put his face in his hands. “I know.”
The front door opened behind him. Sheila came out on the porch in her dentist office scrubs. She looked at me. Then at Ray. Then at the receipt in his hand.
“What’s going on?” she said. “Ray? What’s that?”
Ray didn’t answer.
“Ray. Hunter. What is going on?”
I looked at my uncle. He looked up at me. He looked like a man standing on the edge of a cliff.
“Tell her,” I said. “Or I will.”
He told her.
All of it. Right there on the front steps. The plant. The layoff in August. Driving around every day in his work boots. The truck payment. The lawn money. The widows. Tyler. Grandma’s taxes.
Sheila sat down on the porch swing halfway through. By the end, she had both hands over her mouth.
“Eleven months,” she said. “You’ve been lying to me for eleven months?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Every morning you kissed me goodbye and said have a good day at work.”
“I’m sorry, Sheila.”
“You took money from Opal?” Her voice went up. “From Opal? On her Social Security?”
Ray couldn’t answer.
Sheila stood up. She came down the porch steps and stood in front of me.
“Hunter,” she said. “Come to supper Sunday. You and Opal. At six.” She looked at Ray. “We’re going to sit down as a family and fix this. All of it. And we’re going to do it before anybody loses a house.”
Sunday supper was at Grandma’s, actually. Sheila called and said Grandma should be in her own kitchen, and that she’d bring the food.
