There's a hole in the glass sign like someone once threw a rock through it. Inside, the shelves stretch back over a grey-painted floor that's in need of a swabbing. The floor is uneven and the shelves ride the crests and troughs under fluorescent lights. I walk back there and whoa lordy, if there ain't holes in the floor patched with giant, sagging swaths of plywood that bows as I walk across it. Come to think of it, these aren't so much holes as large rectangles, bigger than the front door. What's below? Kegs of grog, no doubt. Sacks of limes.
My dad and I look for hinges in complicated rows of little cardboard bins. There's a hinge or a hook or a screw taped to the outside of the each box that would seem to indicate its contents, but upon inspection the boxes contain something close to the taped sample, but not exactly what you are looking for. The propetier joins us in the back and when the phone rings all the way at the front of the store, he whips a handset from a hidden pocket and answers it.
I wander off and consider borrowing twenty bucks for the navvy blue cap with an English flag flowing across the front with the bold caption: "ENGLAND EXPECTS..."
My dad finds not only the right hinges but three of them and matching screws that sit delightfully flush with the hinge when shut. Clever dad.
We get back in the car; I salute as we pull away.
THEN, not a DAY LATER, I get an email from the desk of one Henry Lebo, father of one Sarah Holmes Lebo. It contained one thing and one thing only. The pictue below, with the note "for Robyn".
Dads. They just know.
