Saturday, 9:12 a.m., and the Costco lot was already three rows of circling brake lights when a minivan pulled out of the space nearest the entrance and left it standing open for him. He had run two dry cleaners for thirty-one years and drove a Buick with 190,000 miles on it. He waited, blinker on, for eleven full seconds, then took it with both hands flat on the wheel.

He told his wife in the produce section. He told the cashier. At his daughter's on Sunday he told it again with the timing intact, and his son-in-law said huh, nice, and went back to the game. He was seventy-one. It was one of the last stories he had left that ended in good news, and he had learned to spend it slowly.