…word. Joanne followed them to the porch. I followed Joanne. Out in the driveway, Dale’s county plow truck was idling, orange lights turning slowly in the falling snow. And parked behind it was a second truck, older, with a fresh number painted on the door. Dale tossed his brother a pair of insulated gloves. “Your shift starts at eight,” he said. “Route 9. I’ll ride with you the first night.”
I looked at Joanne. She was crying without making a sound. “He hasn’t worked since April,” she whispered to me. “The firm let him go. He’s been leaving the house every morning in a suit and sitting in the library parking lot until five.” She wiped her face. “I called Dale in September. I didn’t know who else to call.”
Neil stood in the snow, holding the gloves, staring at the truck. All the color had left his face. “You knew,” he said to his brother. “The whole time I was talking in there, you knew.” Dale nodded. “I knew. I got you on the seasonal crew. Supervisor owed me a favor.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything when I…” Neil stopped. He looked back at the bright window, at the table where he’d just told twelve people that plow drivers get paid to sit. Dale shrugged. “Because you needed to say it. And now you need to find out for yourself.”
They were out until five in the morning. When they came back, Neil’s hands were raw and his eyes were red from the wind. He sat at the kitchen table in his coat and didn’t take it off. Joanne put a cup of coffee in front of him. He held it for a long time, then said, very quietly, “There was a car in the ditch on Miller Road. A girl and her baby. Dale saw the taillights in the snow before I did.”
Neil drove Route 9 all winter. He never once called himself a consultant again. And at Christmas dinner, when somebody made a joke about plow drivers, Neil put down his fork before Dale even had the chance to look up. “Careful,” he said. “That’s my job.”
