My Partner Changed The Locks Before The First Spring Delivery

My key went into the shop door, but it would not turn.

I tried once more, gently. Old locks were like old joints. Force seldom helped.

Through the glass, I saw Gavin pull his chair away from my bench. He carried a paper cup past the paint rack and stopped on the other side of the door.

"We need to talk, Audra."

"Then open it."

He held up an envelope instead.

I was seventy-one, a mixed-race Black and white woman with brown skin, a broad nose, and silver curls I kept tied above my safety glasses. That morning, my glasses hung over the collar of the work shirt I had worn to restore carousel figures for thirty-nine years.

Gavin Roake was a lean white American man of thirty-six, with pale eyes, a sandy beard, and shirts so crisp they never looked at home near wood glue.

He opened the door as far as the new chain allowed.

"You've missed deliveries. You lost the blue paint order. Last week you forgot the heater."

"The driver changed his date. The paint was under your desk. I turned off the heater because its plug was hot."

"This is what I mean. There's always an explanation."

He pushed the envelope through the gap.

Across the street, dirty snow lay beside the curb. A truck rolled toward the river. Our little brick shop stood south of downtown Rockford, where winter grit got into every hinge.

I had bought the building with my husband, Ellis. He had been dead nine years. The ring on my finger had worn thin where I held my carving tools.

Our first sign still hung over the window. I had painted its gold letters myself, standing on a milk crate while Ellis held the brush tin.

I touched it to the door glass.

One soft tick.

I tested every repaired animal that way. A gentle tap beside a mend told me whether the wood spoke clean or hid a loose seam. Ellis had called it my smallest hammer.

"You can't test a business like a wooden horse," Gavin said.

"No. Businesses have books."

His mouth tightened.

Four years before, I had wanted fewer hours and someone to handle shipping. Gavin had brought energy, a new order system, and enough money to buy a forty percent stake. For a while, those had been good things.

Then he had begun to call every delay a failure of nerve. Glue needed time. So did primer. Gavin mistook being tired of waiting for being brave.

Inside the envelope was a notice on our letterhead.

Effective immediately, Audra Mercer was retired from all duties. Gavin Roake was sole owner and manager. Attached was a copy of a recent state filing naming him as manager.

Under reason, he had typed that forgetfulness made me unfit to own a business.

"That's a filing," I said. "Where's the completed transfer?"

"My accountant handled the transition."

"Which accountant?"

"You don't need to worry about that anymore."

There was also a one-page release. In return for $2,000, I would give up all claims and agree not to contact customers.

"That's generous," he said. "Given the losses."

I folded it along its original crease.

"I need my patterns."

"I'll have someone box your personal things."

He looked relieved when I stepped back. He thought I had reached the edge of what I could follow.

I had forgotten plenty in my life. An umbrella. A birthday until suppertime. Once, my own lunch inside the varnish cabinet.

I had not forgotten why I kept the purchase-money note in a flat envelope behind the standing-horse patterns. Or why the equipment title schedule had each machine's serial number written in my hand.

The original pattern case was at home. I had taken it there after a roof leak. Gavin had complained about the space it took in my car.

I did not tell him that.

"Mabel was due back to her owner Friday," I said. "Has her saddle trim cured?"

"Everything's handled."

Mabel was a small jumper with a green saddle and one bent ear. A park trust near Dixon had sent her for a neck repair. She belonged to them, down to the brass stirrup screws.

Gavin shut the door before I could ask another question.

I sat in my car and wrote the time on the envelope: 8:14 a.m., March 3. Then I wrote down his words while they were fresh.

My hands shook. I let them.

At home, I laid the patterns on my kitchen table. Between two brown paper horses lay our signed agreement, the note, and Schedule B. A little corner of green paint marked the page where Gavin had signed.

Before I reached the payment record, a heavy engine stopped outside.

Pearl Okafor climbed down from her traveling carousel truck, waving both arms beneath her bright yellow coat.

"Audra! Tell me you haven't lost your mind and sold this girl!"

She opened the trailer door.

Mabel stood strapped inside.