The envelope lay face up on the counter for a second before he picked it up, and I did see the front of that, because it was right there. His handwriting was large and spidery and slanted backward as if leaning away from a wind. It said BOX HOLDER, and under that P.O. BOX 1187, and under that ERIE PA 16508. That was all. No name.
I remember thinking it was the loneliest address I had ever seen.
"Mail slot's around the corner," Dot said, softer now. "Or I can take it."
"I'll put it in myself," he said. "Thank you, Dorota."
So he knew her name, and not from the tag. I filed that away. He reached for his cane and missed it, and I unhooked it from the counter and put it in his left hand, and he leaned on it and turned, and for a moment we were standing very close together, him and me, in front of the whole silent line.
"You didn't have to do that," he said.
"You said that already."
"I'm old. I repeat myself." He looked at my chin again, quickly, and then away. "Where did you learn to say that? What you said. About looking."
"Work," I said. "I'm a 911 dispatcher. In Columbus. I say it to people about twenty times a week."
"Dispatcher," he repeated. He said it like a word in a language he was trying to learn. "That's a hard job."
"It has its days."
"You're good at it. I can tell." He put his cap on. His hands had trouble with that too, and I wanted to help, and I did not, and I think he noticed that I did not, and I think he was grateful. "Whoever taught you to say that," he said, "they knew what they were doing."
"Nobody taught me. I just say it."
He nodded, but it was a strange nod, as if I had said something that confirmed a thing he already knew. Behind me Mack cleared his throat and stepped up to the counter with his envelopes, and the line lurched forward one body-length all at once, like a train taking up slack, and the woman with the toddler pushed my box of quilts along the floor with her foot, which I appreciated more than I can say.
I walked with the old man toward the corner where the mail slots were. It was maybe fifteen steps. He took them slowly, cane and foot, cane and foot, and I matched him.
"Fifty dollars every month?" I asked. I don't know why I asked. Maybe because I had just paid six dollars and forty cents of it and felt, irrationally, that this gave me some small share in whatever it was. "Same as always, you said."
"Same as always."
"How long have you been doing it?"
"Seventeen years this month."
I did the math without meaning to. Two hundred and some envelopes. Ten thousand dollars, more, a dollar sixty-five at a time in fees, out of a wallet held together with a rubber band. "That's a long time to pay something off."