Walter had come running out from behind the counter the moment he heard the commotion through the window. Dorothy right behind him, her phone catching the whole scene through the front glass without her even thinking to check it. Together, they helped Harold to his feet slowly, carefully, Josie supporting his other side.
“You did this,” Josie said, turning toward Dalton, her voice carrying a sharpness Walter had never heard from her before. “You weren’t even looking where you were going, and you didn’t even stop to help him up.” “It was an accident,” Dalton said, though the grin hadn’t fully left his face, and that alone told a story of its own. “Old man should watch where he’s walking, too.”
“He’s seventy-five years old,” Josie said. “He deserves better than being knocked to the ground and laughed at.” “Whatever,” Dalton said, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s not that big a deal. He’s fine.” “You don’t know that,” Josie said. “You didn’t even check.”
For the first time since the whole thing began weeks earlier, something shifted visibly in Josie’s face. Not anger exactly. Something closer to a line being drawn clearly, permanently, in a place that had been fuzzy before. “You can laugh at me all you want,” she said, her voice low, but carrying across the small parking lot. “I don’t care about that, but when you hurt somebody who can’t easily protect themselves, and you don’t even have the decency to help them up, that’s not a joke anymore. That’s something else.”
Nolan, standing a few feet away, looked down at his shoes, unable to meet anyone’s eyes. Dalton rolled his eyes and muttered something about people being dramatic, then walked off toward his car with Reed trailing behind him, still filming the aftermath on his phone. Though this time, nobody was laughing along with him.
Walter helped Harold inside and sat him down at the counter, checking his wrist carefully. The old instincts of a man who had spent decades responding to trouble kicking in without effort. “Might want to get that looked at properly,” Walter said, “just to be safe.” “I’ll be fine, Walt,” Harold said. “Takes more than a little tumble to put me down for good.”
“Still,” Josie said, gently wrapping his wrist with a clean cloth from behind the counter that Walter handed her. “You should let someone check it. Falls can be more serious than they feel at first, especially with a hip.” Harold looked at her with something like gratitude and something like recognition, too. “You handled that real calm,” he said. “Most folks your age would have been shouting.”
“My father taught me that shouting doesn’t fix anything,” Josie said quietly. “It just makes the other person feel like they won something.” Harold nodded slowly. “You said something a lot like that to me the other week about handling yourself. I remember thinking you meant it.” He winced slightly, shifting his weight. “Didn’t expect to see it in action quite so soon.” “Neither did I,” Josie admitted.