“The forty-one?” she asked, her voice dropping so the teller at the next window would not hear.
“Yes,” I said.
“Carter, that account has been there since you took over the shop,” she said, leaning forward. “Is there something wrong with the building?”
“No,” I said.
“Are you buying a new truck?” she asked. “Because the dealership down in Logan has those blue ones on sale this week.”
I stayed silent, my hands resting on the edge of the marble counter.
“I need the draft cashier’s check made out to the county clerk today, Sarah,” I said.
She looked at me for a long moment, searchingly, but my face did not give her anything to work with.
She filled in the numbers on the slip with quick, sharp strokes of her pen.
The white paper looked small on the green marble.
She slid the slip toward me, pointing to the line at the bottom with the tip of her pen.
“Sign here,” she said.
The physical slip of paper containing my life savings slid across the counter.
The morning light in the woodshop was grey, filtering through the high clerestory windows that had not been washed in five years.
Robert, the only local contractor who would work on twenty-four hours’ notice, stood with his hands on his hips. He looked up at the heavy timber rafters, then down at the north wall where my lumber racks usually sat.
“We need forty-eight inches of clearance from the floor to the sill,” Robert said, his pencil resting behind his ear. “And the county code is going to want three extra windows on this side if you’re turning this bay into living quarters.”
“We only have the two high ones,” I said.
I rubbed my thumb against my palm, a habit from years of working wood without gloves.
“Then you’re three windows short of a legal residence,” Robert said. He tapped his steel-toed boot against the bottom plate of the partition frame I had started. “The planning office isn’t going to sign off on a living quarters permit with just these. Kids need light, Carter. That’s the county law.”
