The stuff started disappearing from the store.

Microwave. Vacuum cleaner. Space heater. Not broken in. Not smashed. Just gone. Locked doors. Locked windows. Nothing forced.

Dave installed a camera. Recorded a figure in a hoodie at two in the morning. Walked in. Took stuff. Walked out. No time travel. No conspiracy. Just a guy in a hoodie.

Dave called the police. Officer Miller came. Looked at the camera footage. Took a report. Said they'd keep an eye out. Then left.

Dave changed the locks. Sharon said you should call the police. Dave called. Officer Miller came and left. Nothing changed.

Dave tried an alarm. It went off three times. Each time a cat knocked over a shelf.

They tried insurance. Insurance said they needed a police report proving theft. The police report said: unable to determine nature of theft. Insurance denied the claim.

No strategy. No clever reversal. No genius plan. Dave tried locking the doors. Changed the locks. Installed an alarm. Sharon suggested calling the police. Dave called. Officer Miller came and left. Insurance said unable to determine nature of theft. Denied the claim.

That was it.

Neighbors mentioned a homeless kid who slept in the abandoned Walmart parking lot. Police found him. Not from the camera. From an informant. The kid was stealing to buy drugs.

Not time travel. Not a conspiracy. A kid with a drug problem stealing appliances to trade for a fix.

The police brought the kid to the store. Dave recognized the hoodie from the camera footage. Kid kept his head down. Didn't say anything. Dave looked at him. Didn't know whether to be angry or sorry. Finally said: forget it.

The police took the kid away.

Dave put better locks on the doors. Better locks. The best locks you could buy at the hardware store.

The kid got in through the vent anyway. Once. Took a space heater. Dave found it gone. Vent cover on the floor.

The store closed. Not because of the theft. Because Walmart opened a new store two streets away. Could not compete. Used appliance stores cannot survive when Walmart is two blocks away.

The bank took the building. Dave went to North Dakota to live with his brother. Sharon went to Arizona to live with her daughter.

The locks were still there. New locks. Better than the old ones. Nobody used them.

The coffee was still cold. Dave made a cup every morning and forgot to drink it. Sharon said: throw it away. She said: keep it. The coffee sat there from Monday to Friday. Then thrown away. Brewed again. Sat there. Thrown away.

Cold coffee.

The kid was arrested six months later. Possession. The heater was gone. The microwave was gone. The vacuum cleaner was gone. All gone. Trading for drugs. All of it.

Dave heard about it from a customer who heard it from someone who knew someone in the police department. He didn't feel anything. Not anger. Not satisfaction. Just nothing.

Sharon packed her things while Dave was at the pawn shop trying to sell the store's remaining inventory for whatever they would give him. The pawn shop offered three hundred dollars for everything. Three hundred. For ten years of work.

Dave took it.

They did not fight about the house. They did not fight about the store. They did not fight about anything. They just stopped fighting because there was nothing left to fight for.

Sharon's daughter answered the phone when Dave called from North Dakota. She sounded tired. "Hi, Dad." Not happy. Not sad. Tired.

"Hi, sweetheart."

"How are you?"

"Fine. You?"

"Good. Mom is here. She is doing okay."

"Okay. That is good."

"Yeah. Okay."

Silence. Then: "Bye, Dad."

"Bye."

He hung up. Sat on the couch in his brother's guest room. The couch was green. His brother's wife had painted it green five years ago. His brother didn't like green. Didn't say anything.

Dave looked at the wall. The wall was beige. His brother's house was small. Two bedrooms. One bath. A yard that needed mowing. His brother mowed it on Sundays. Always Sundays. Always the same time. Nine in the morning. Always.

Dave closed his eyes. Thought about the store. Thought about the locks. Thought about the coffee.

Cold coffee.

The new tenant of the store space put up a sign: Now Leased. The locks were still there. Better locks. Nobody used them.

The coffee machine was still in the back room. The tenant didn't know it was there. Didn't look in the back room. Didn't need to.

The microwave was gone. The vacuum cleaner was gone. The space heater was gone.

All gone.