* * *
That was the second week of December. The third week, my father got his notice.
He didn't tell us right away. I found out the way I found out most things, lying on my bedroom floor with my ear near the grate. It was a Wednesday night. My parents were in the kitchen, but the kitchen was directly under the bathroom, not my room, so I had to lie in the dark hallway with my cheek on the cold floorboards by the bathroom door to make out the words. Sam was asleep. The note had not come yet; it was only ten-thirty.
"—sixty days," my father was saying. "That's what the paper says. Sixty days, and then they'll see. Maybe they call some of us back in the spring if the orders pick up. Maybe."
"How many?"
"Four hundred, they're saying. Four-fifty. In the whole plant. Everybody under sixteen years seniority in the erection shop, pretty much."
"You have fourteen."
"I know how many I have, Carol."
Silence. The refrigerator hummed.
"We have the savings," my mother said.
"We have about eleven hundred in savings. That's two mortgage payments. There's unemployment, there's that. Gus says they're hiring at Lord Corporation, maybe. Or I could see about Zurn. I don't know." A chair scraped. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I keep thinking about Christmas. I keep thinking, the kids—"
"The kids will be fine. Christmas will be fine. Ray. Look at me." Her voice was very calm, the voice she used on the phone with people at the hospital who were angry about their bills. "We'll figure it out. We always figure it out."