He didn’t know what he’d expected walking into Hargrove Savings Bank that morning. Something simple. Something Margaret would have handled in twenty minutes. Instead he’d been sitting in the same chair for two hours while the lobby moved around him like he wasn’t part of it.
He’d tried everything the right way. Waited. Been polite. Apologized for things that weren’t his fault. The man he’d been called in to meet hadn’t opened his door once. Elias thought he’d known what patience meant. He was beginning to think he’d been wrong about that.
Then he heard it. His wife’s name. His farm’s name. Spoken low across the lobby by someone with no reason to say either. He looked up and caught two people looking quickly away, their faces carrying something he couldn’t name but could feel the weight of from across the room.