“Mr. Hale came to my house,” Shelly said into my shoulder. “He knocked on my door. He said I have my job back. He said it was all a mistake. He said you…” She pulled back and looked at me. “Dot, what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “George did. A long time ago.”
Richard Hale came up the porch steps slowly. Brandon trailed behind him, hanging back by the railing. Looking at his shoes. Very nice shoes. Shiny.
Mr. Hale stopped at the top of the steps. He looked down at all the peas rolling across my porch.
Then he did something I didn’t expect.
He knelt down in his expensive gray suit and started picking them up.
One by one. Putting them back in my bowl.
I watched him do it for a minute.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“My grandmother shelled peas on her porch,” he said, not looking up. “In Ottumwa. I used to help her. I haven’t done it in forty years.”
He picked up every single pea. It took him three minutes. Then he stood up, brushed off his knees, and handed me the bowl.
“Mrs. Whitaker,” he said. “I owe you an apology. A real one.”
“Sit down, Mr. Hale,” I said. “There’s iced tea.”
We sat on my porch for two hours.
Shelly brought out the iced tea. She knows where everything is in my kitchen. She’s been coming over for Sunday coffee since George died.
Mr. Hale told me everything.
The spring review. The numbers. The Millbrook branch had the lowest transaction volume of any Heartland branch in Iowa. The oldest customers. The highest cost per transaction. On paper, it made no sense to keep it open.
“Every bank in the country is doing this,” he said. “Closing small-town branches. Moving everything online. It’s how we survive.”
