Things Left Behind Leah let the kid steal because he looked hungry and the register was empty anyway and the manager was in the back room watching a show on his phone and the kid was maybe sixteen and maybe seventeen and taking a pack of cigarettes was not the kind of thing that would show up on any report anyone would read. She stacked cans of beans on the bottom shelf and tried not to watch him put them in his jacket. She had watched people take things from shelves for two years, ever since the factory closed and Family Dollar opened and opened and opened and nobody talked about anything except which shift was which and how much the rent had gone up and whether the bus was running on time, which it never was. The pack was Marlboros. Red. He put them in his pocket and looked at her and she looked at the floor and the floor was linoleum and chipped and beige and nobody noticed the chips unless they were standing right in front of them and trying not to. When he left, she rang nothing through the register and the register did not care and neither did she, except for a small thing that sat in her chest like a coin and stayed there and would not move. Dan picked her up at eight-thirty, which was thirty minutes late, which was normal. He drove a grey Honda that had seen better years and better interiors and better owners and better everything except the part that mattered, which was that it started and it moved and it took her home from work in a town that was too quiet at night and not quiet enough during the day. They got Chinese food in the car, because that is what they did after work, and the food was in a white carton and the rice was cold in the middle and the General Tso's chicken was lukewarm and nobody said anything about it because saying anything about the food was like saying anything about the town or the factory or the girl who had gone missing from the factory district two years ago and whose name was on Leah's mind more often than she wanted but less often than she stopped thinking about. They ate in silence. Dan smoked. Leah watched the street. A dog was barking somewhere. A car drove by slow. A light changed from red to green and back to red and nobody went through it because there was nobody to go anywhere. --- Mike's restaurant was on Avenue C, and it was the kind of place that had been the same since 1987 and would be the same until it was not, which is how places go: not with a bang or a closing or a sign that says WE ARE CLOSED permanently, which is what permanently says in places like this, but with a slow fading of the things that held them together—the staff, the customers, the particular quality of light that comes through windows that have not been washed in years. Leah went there once a week, usually Thursday, usually alone, usually ordering the same thing and eating it at the same table and watching the other customers watch the television mounted in the corner and not watching it. Tonight Dan was there too, sitting at the counter with a coffee he was not drinking and a phone that was not ringing, which was normal because phones do not ring in places like this anymore. They ring, or they vibrate, or they sit on counters and tables and in pockets and nobody notices them until someone calls and it is someone you do not want to hear from or someone you do want to hear from and the difference is not as big as you think. Jay called at nine-fifteen, which was late for a Thursday and normal for Jay. He left a voicemail, which was what he always did: Hey, just checking in. You okay? I was thinking about that thing we talked about last week. Call me back. Or don't. Whatever. I'm around. Leah did not call him back. Nobody called anybody back in Youngstown anymore. You stayed around and that was the calling. After dinner, she went home and Dan went home too, which was what they did. But he came back, ten minutes later, with a flashlight and a roll of tape and a look on his face that said he had noticed something on the way out and had decided to fix it because fixing things was what you did when there was nothing else to do. Her ceiling was leaking in the bedroom, above the bed, and the leak had been there for three weeks and she had put a bucket under it and the bucket had overflowed twice and she had emptied it both times and not thought about it either time, because thinking about the ceiling was like thinking about the factory was like thinking about her sister: it led nowhere and it took something you needed somewhere else. Dan stood on a chair and looked at the ceiling and touched the spot where the paint was bulging and said, It's not much. Just a spot. I'll tape it. He didn't use glue or nails or anything that required a trip to the store. He used the tape—silver duct tape, wide and strong and the kind of thing that holds for a day and then holds for a week and then holds until it doesn't, which is how tape works and how most things work in places like this: they hold until they

Author Note & Copyright: