as vulnerable. Still, I was surprised at how defenseless my father appeared.
“What’s going on with the store?” I said.
My father looked quickly over to my mother. “Tyler’s in charge while we sort this out.”
“Tyler?” I didn’t remember hearing the name before.
“He’s my manager.”
This meant that Tyler was no older than twenty. My father had always steadfastly refused to staff his stationery and gift store with anything other than high school and college kids, arguing, “What could I expect from an adult who was willing to work in a card store?” The logic made a certain amount of sense and it had essentially served him well. But his business model didn’t accommodate situations such as this one.
“Have you spoken to him lately?”
“He called yesterday and gave me a complete rundown. I told him I didn’t want him worrying about calling me every day. He’s fine. He’s been with me for two years. He knows the place.”
I looked over at my mother, who was studiously avoiding eye contact.
“I can take a few days if you want me to look in on the store while you recover,” I said, knowing as the words left my mouth that this was just about the last thing in the world I wanted to do.
My mother’s face lifted. “You don’t have to get back to Springfield?”
“I can take a little time.”
“Tyler’s a good kid,” my father said. “I’m sure he can handle everything.” He stopped, as though he wasn’t sure that the doctor would approve of the effort required to keep talking to me about this. “But I would appreciate it if you checked to see that everything is okay.”
I got to the store midmorning the next day. Amber Cards, Gifts, and Stationery (rumor has it that my father actually labored over the naming of his store. I could imagine him considering, “Is it Amber Gifts, Cards, and Stationery? Amber Stationery, Cards, and Gifts? If I just called it Amber Stationery, would people surmise that we also had cards and gifts?”) had been a fixture on Russet Avenue since before I was born. My father spent his first few years out of college managing a warehouse for an office supply manufacturer in Hartford. When a couple of stock investments he made shot through the roof, he took one of the few risks in his life and moved to the emerging riverside town of Amber to open the shop on its main street. Thirty-four years later, my father could never claim to have had a windfall year (or, for that matter, another investment that scored the way that pair in the ’70s did, even during the Internet boom). But he would boast that his “little enterprise” had given his family “everything they needed to get by.”
I spent enough after-school hours and summers working in the store to know that small-time retailing was not in my DNA. I didn’t have the disposition to placate customers when the supermarket inserts were missing from the local paper or when we ran out of red poster board the night before a class project was due. That required a level of patience and concern that I simply didn’t have. I never once felt shortchanged.
It had probably been five years since I’d stepped foot in the store. My father had moved the card racks, and the merchandise at the front was more focused on lower-priced items than I remembered. But the vibe was very much the same. Generic instrumental versions of popular songs peeking from the speakers, a handful of people pondering Hallmark sentiments, the guy breezing in to buy a copy of Forbes , the woman with the three-year-old looking at the figurines as a gift for Aunt Claire.
There was a young woman dusting shelves who continued to do so even as a customer asked her a question and there was a guy behind the counter taking notes from a textbook. I walked over to him.
“Are you Tyler?” I asked.
He glanced up from his reading. “Yeah, hi.”
“I’m Hugh Penders, Richard’s son.”
He tilted his head for a moment as though he did-n’t
“What’s going on with the store?” I said.
My father looked quickly over to my mother. “Tyler’s in charge while we sort this out.”
“Tyler?” I didn’t remember hearing the name before.
“He’s my manager.”
This meant that Tyler was no older than twenty. My father had always steadfastly refused to staff his stationery and gift store with anything other than high school and college kids, arguing, “What could I expect from an adult who was willing to work in a card store?” The logic made a certain amount of sense and it had essentially served him well. But his business model didn’t accommodate situations such as this one.
“Have you spoken to him lately?”
“He called yesterday and gave me a complete rundown. I told him I didn’t want him worrying about calling me every day. He’s fine. He’s been with me for two years. He knows the place.”
I looked over at my mother, who was studiously avoiding eye contact.
“I can take a few days if you want me to look in on the store while you recover,” I said, knowing as the words left my mouth that this was just about the last thing in the world I wanted to do.
My mother’s face lifted. “You don’t have to get back to Springfield?”
“I can take a little time.”
“Tyler’s a good kid,” my father said. “I’m sure he can handle everything.” He stopped, as though he wasn’t sure that the doctor would approve of the effort required to keep talking to me about this. “But I would appreciate it if you checked to see that everything is okay.”
I got to the store midmorning the next day. Amber Cards, Gifts, and Stationery (rumor has it that my father actually labored over the naming of his store. I could imagine him considering, “Is it Amber Gifts, Cards, and Stationery? Amber Stationery, Cards, and Gifts? If I just called it Amber Stationery, would people surmise that we also had cards and gifts?”) had been a fixture on Russet Avenue since before I was born. My father spent his first few years out of college managing a warehouse for an office supply manufacturer in Hartford. When a couple of stock investments he made shot through the roof, he took one of the few risks in his life and moved to the emerging riverside town of Amber to open the shop on its main street. Thirty-four years later, my father could never claim to have had a windfall year (or, for that matter, another investment that scored the way that pair in the ’70s did, even during the Internet boom). But he would boast that his “little enterprise” had given his family “everything they needed to get by.”
I spent enough after-school hours and summers working in the store to know that small-time retailing was not in my DNA. I didn’t have the disposition to placate customers when the supermarket inserts were missing from the local paper or when we ran out of red poster board the night before a class project was due. That required a level of patience and concern that I simply didn’t have. I never once felt shortchanged.
It had probably been five years since I’d stepped foot in the store. My father had moved the card racks, and the merchandise at the front was more focused on lower-priced items than I remembered. But the vibe was very much the same. Generic instrumental versions of popular songs peeking from the speakers, a handful of people pondering Hallmark sentiments, the guy breezing in to buy a copy of Forbes , the woman with the three-year-old looking at the figurines as a gift for Aunt Claire.
There was a young woman dusting shelves who continued to do so even as a customer asked her a question and there was a guy behind the counter taking notes from a textbook. I walked over to him.
“Are you Tyler?” I asked.
He glanced up from his reading. “Yeah, hi.”
“I’m Hugh Penders, Richard’s son.”
He tilted his head for a moment as though he did-n’t