The winter we did not close
Open at six. Especially when nobody is coming.
January 1996. The ore boats stopped and half of Superior Street went dark. Anders’s back was gone, so I ran the counter before school and he worked the dough from a stool. One Tuesday we sold eleven loaves. I wanted to close until spring. He said the people still coming were the people who would keep coming. By March we were short of flour. A shop is not a building. It is a promise about six o’clock, and you keep it on the days it costs you.
You wrote this on this day in 2023.