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The cashier at Murphy's Hardware had been dead for three weeks, but no one seemed to take any notice except Delilah.
She just stood there with a package of screws, watching old Hendrick scanning things with the same vacant expression he'd been wearing ever since she was twelve. His skin had this sticky waxy sort of sheen now, and when he'd move his arms around, they would make this odd creaking sound.
"That'll be four-fifty," Hendrick answered, as usual.
She handed him a five. His fingers were cold against hers. Cold.
"Keep the change," she muttered, claiming her receipt.
Outside, she met her neighbor Leo unloading mulch from his truck.
"Hey, have you noticed. anything odd about Hendrick lately?" she asked.
Leo shrugged. "He's always been odd. Why?"
"I dunno, he just seems—"
"Dead? Yeah, my wife says so too. Guy's worked there forever. Probably should've retired years ago."
That was not Delilah's plan, but she did not follow it up.
The thing was, she'd seen Hendrick's obituary in the newspaper three weeks earlier. Heart attack, funeral at St. Mary's, two cats left behind. She'd even driven past the cemetery and seen his freshly dug grave.
But he was there each morning, opening the shop at eight sharp, piling up the cans of paint, helping customers find the right size bolts.
She asked herself if she had somehow mistaken him for someone else. But no—same place where the hair was thinning, same coffee ring on his work surface, same clacking of dentures when he was working hard.
The totally weird thing was, he was actually performing his job more effectively now. Before, Hendrick used to get annoyed with customers, especially when they couldn't explain what they needed. Now he was. patient. Helpful, as well.
"You need wood screws or metal?" he'd ask, and in some strange ways, he would always know exactly what people needed.
Delilah began visiting the hardware store regularly, just to see. She bought useless things—duct tape, light bulbs, a tiny hammer she'd never use.
One Tuesday morning, she mustered the courage to push him.
"Remember when Mrs. Patterson's dog escaped last month?" she asked as he scanned her purchase.
Hendrick hesitated, glancing at the same paint brush twice. "Don't remember that."
"Huh. You took her with you to look for it. Walked the neighborhood for two hours."
"Hmm." He showed her the receipt. "Guess I forgot."
But Delilah had known Mrs. Patterson's dog never got loose. She'd made the whole thing up.
She started to try him out with other spurious memories—things that never happened, people who never lived. Hendrick never remembered any of them. He remembered only things that happened, and only for three weeks ago.
The day of his funeral.
That's when Delilah saw something more. Hendrick wasn't just dead—he was stuck. Like his ghost or whatever had become trapped in this routine, showing up for work because that was what he'd been doing for thirty-seven years.
She actually felt a little sorry for him. Guy dies and can't even die right because he's so ingrained in the routine of showing up at work.
So she did something to help.
"Hendrick," she said one afternoon, "when did you last take a vacation?"
He knitted his brow. "Vacation?"
"Sure, you know—go away somewhere nice, relax."
"Can't leave the store."
"Why not? You've got that new boy working part-time now."
Hendrick shook his head. "Someone's got to watch the place."
"But what if you didn't? What if you just. left?"
For a moment, something shifted in his face. As if he were recalling something significant.
"I wanted to go to the Grand Canyon," he grumbled.
"So go."
"Can't. I have responsibilities."
Delilah bought a postcard of the Grand Canyon from the gas station and brought it into the shop the next day.
"See what I found," she said, slapping it on the counter.
Hendrick picked it up, and for the first time in weeks, smiled. Smiled actually.
"Beautiful," he said.
"You should go."
"Perhaps I will."
The next day, Murphy's Hardware did not open. Leo informed us so when he saw Delilah getting her mail.
"Odd thing—Hendrick just up and quit on a whim. Left a note that he was going on a trip."
Delilah nodded. "Good for him."
She never had the chance to see Hendrick again, but on occasion, she'd ride past the cemetery and see new flowers on his grave. Not store-bought flowers—the kind you find growing wild along a trail.
Perhaps in the Grand Canyon.