Brandt’s has been on that corner since before I could drive. It still has the old wood floor, worn into a shallow trough from the front door to the counter. It smells like molasses and leather and that sweet, dusty smell of calf starter. Dale bought mineral blocks and fence staples there for thirty years.
Mr. Brandt is seventy-four. He still carries fifty-pound sacks out to people’s pickups, though he sets them down a little more carefully than he used to.
For three weeks, there had been an index card taped to the side of his cash register. I’d read it every time I went in for bird seed. And every time, I’d told myself it was none of my business.
House for rent. Two rooms and bath. See Brandt.
He was open until four on Saturdays during harvest. It was twenty past two.
“Judy,” he said when I came in. “Black oil sunflower?”
