Agnes's Arc

Chapter 7 of 10

Agnes did not sleep well. Allan going to the market was a good thing. A good thing done once. She had seen men do good things once. She needed to know if this one could do them for a year. Monday morning she drove into town and parked two doors down from the small newspaper office. The bell over the door rang thin. Stacks of back issues leaned against the front counter. A woman in a trench coat was already inside, sorting a bin of old papers with the patience of someone who did it every week. "Mrs. Smith," Agnes said. Mrs. Smith looked up over her glasses. She had known Agnes since the girls were small. She did not ask why Agnes was there. She waited. "I want to read anything you have on Allan," Agnes said. "From before he opened the bakery. Whatever ran in the paper. I don't want him to know I looked." Mrs. Smith set the bin down. "He's your son-in-law now." "He is. And my daughter is carrying his child." Mrs. Smith held her eyes a moment. Then she went to a filing cabinet in the back and came back with a thin folder. She set it on the counter and stepped away to give Agnes the counter to herself. There was not much. A short piece from ten years ago about a kitchen fire at a restaurant two towns over. Allan's name in the staff list. A follow-up saying the fire had started from a pan left on a burner. No charges. A later notice about the restaurant closing. And one letter to the editor. Signed by Allan. Two paragraphs. He wrote that the fire had been his. That he had walked out of the kitchen angry and left the burner on. That the owner had covered for him and he did not want the owner blamed anymore. He asked the paper to print it so the record was straight. Agnes read it twice. She read the date. Ten years ago. Long before Melissa. Long before anyone here knew him. She closed the folder. Her hands were steady now. "Thank you," she said. Mrs. Smith nodded. "Is it what you wanted?" "No," Agnes said. "It's better." She drove to the bakery. Allan was at the counter with a rag in his hand. Melissa was on a stool by the window in a floral dress, eating toast slowly, one small bite at a time. "Sit with us," Melissa said. Agnes sat. She looked at Allan. "You wrote a letter once. About a fire." Allan went still the way he did in front of a ruined loaf. Then he set the rag down. "I did," he said. "You didn't have to." "I did have to." Agnes nodded once. She reached across and took her daughter's hand. The plan she had carried for months loosened in her chest. Not gone. Loosened. She would trust him. Carefully. Starting now.