My Brother-In-Law Put His Clipboard Down And Named The Racks

On Monday morning, Colette met Ruth and me at the warehouse door.

"Former employees aren't allowed behind the counter."

Ruth held up her letter.

"Mr. Delva is here as a creditor. We requested a count under the agreement."

"Request denied."

Through the glass, I saw my tools packed in a grocery box. My shears lay under the iron's cord. I had spent sixteen years keeping those blades from touching other metal.

"May I have my box?" I asked.

She pushed it through the door with her foot.

Ruth asked if the company would pay by five.

"My attorney will contact you," Colette said.

The lock clicked before Ruth could answer.

We walked back to her car. I carried the box with both hands, though it was not heavy.

"We don't force the door," Ruth said.

"I know."

"I tell everyone. Anger makes a door look simple."

At her office, we spread the sale agreement on a clean table. The buyer was Parnell Stage Supply, a small dealer in Ohio. Its owner, Edwin Parnell, answered Ruth's call himself.

She asked permission to email the note, security agreement, and filing receipt.

"Mrs. Dumas told me the family had approved the closeout," he said.

"My client has not approved release of his lien."

He went quiet while the documents arrived.

"I paid six thousand dollars into my lawyer's escrow account," he said. "It hasn't gone to her."

That was the first good fact of the morning.

"Please direct any questions to the company's counsel," Ruth said. "We're giving notice of a disputed sale, not asking you to resolve it."

An hour later, his lawyer confirmed that the truck would stay in Ohio. The contract required clear title. Until that issue was settled, there would be no pickup and no release of the deposit.

"I buy old costumes," Mr. Parnell told me in a second call. "I don't buy somebody else's court case."

I thanked him for waiting. He asked me to let the lawyers handle the rest, and I agreed.

I had pictured the costumes crushed into bins. Now I could breathe without seeing it.

At noon, Ansel called.

"She said you ruined the sale."

"I protected the loan."

"She wants me to move six racks to a rented storage unit tonight. She says the dealer can collect them later."

I put the phone on speaker with Ruth's permission.

"Are you willing to put that in writing?" she asked.

"Would she see it?"

"Yes. If we use it in court, she will."

He breathed into the phone. Somewhere behind him, a cart wheel rattled over the warehouse floor.

"I'll call back."

For twenty minutes I watched the minute hand on Ruth's clock.

Then Mireille called from work.

"He rang me," she said. "I told him I couldn't make this choice for him."

"He's afraid she'll lose everything."

"So am I. That doesn't give her the right to take yours."

Ansel arrived at three with his clipboard under his arm. His shirt had a damp stripe down the back from moving racks.

He placed the clipboard on Ruth's desk.

"I sent her the rack list," he said. "I told her I wouldn't load them."

"What did she say?" I asked.

"That my father would be ashamed."

He rubbed his palms on his knees.

"I nearly went back. Then I looked at the children's capes. Four schools have deposits on those. She wants those racks gone too."

He had brought copies of shipping sheets he kept as supervisor. Each showed a rack number, the pieces on it, and bookings already promised.

One rack held the pirate coat.

Beside its number, I had once written Blue Baste: Shoulder Fitting Pending.

"That was the coat you were working on," Ansel said. "When she called you charity."

I nodded.

He looked straight at me.

"I should have said something then."

"You can say something now."

Ruth asked questions, then wrote his statement. He corrected one time from ten to ten-fifteen. He asked her to remove a guess about why Colette wanted the storage unit.

"I only know what she told me," he said.

He signed each page after reading it.

At five, no payment had come. Colette's lawyer had asked for another month without offering any protection for the stock.

Ruth had spent the afternoon preparing a complaint and a request for an urgent court order. With the deadline passed, she filed them.

"What do you need from me tomorrow?" Ansel asked.

Before Ruth answered, her screen lit with a court notice.

A hearing had been set for nine the next morning in St. Joseph County. Ansel took out his phone, called his mother, and told her he would be there to testify.