Readings in Resilience
Closing Time
by Ron Breazeale, Ph.D.
Based on the character Joanne from the novel, Reaching Home.
Closing Time - Part 1
It was a cold and gray afternoon. Night was falling. She hated the dark. It came so early this time of year. The weather forecast was for rain, but it looked like snow to her. She usually didn’t open or she closed early on holidays by 5, not 6. This day would be no different. But it would. It was the last day of the year. Why she had opened the store, she wasn’t completely sure. She had always been open on New Year’s Eve for 30 years. She guessed she wanted today to be no different.
Business was slow. It was to be expected. Children’s books and toys, people had had their fill of both by New Year’s. But that had always been okay. So what if the last week of the year was slow. The sales of November and December had always been strong and carried her through. At least in the past that had been true. The holidays had always brought people to the Old City. By New Year’s Eve she could sigh a sigh of relief. She had survived another year. And that’s what it had felt like for the last few years.
This year, like the two before, had not been good. Oh, the Old City had been filled with people like it always had. But they bought less and they were searching for something different. They weren’t looking for a toy or a book for their child. They were looking to forget that these, like so many, were things that they could no longer afford. So they didn’t come into her shop. They went to the bars in the Old City. The bars seemed to many a good place to forget about the job they didn’t have or the mortgage payment they couldn’t make.
Joanne told herself things would get better. But they hadn’t. She had pulled through hard times before. There had been other recessions in ’02 and ’08. This wasn’t the first one she had had to weather. But each one had taken a little bit more out of her, both emotionally and financially, and it seemed that little bit had not been put back when the recovery, at least that’s what they had called it, when it came. That was certainly true of her savings which were gone. A month before she had sold the last bit of stock she had left after the crash. The last of her inheritance from her mother who had died 12 years before.
Her attorney had told her to close the store before the New Year. She had just spoken with him this morning. A nice man, and competent, and giving good advice, she was sure, but he didn’t understand. The store had been her life, her dream. She had done it, lived it, breathed it, loved it. Few people she thought really understood how important it was to her. Her sister understood and Lee. He would understand. They had been together when she had opened the shop. But she had focused on her shop and he on his career, and they had eventually gone their separate ways. He had married. She had not. But life is strange, she thought. She had gotten a card, a Christmas card from him just the week before. Strange, indeed. She hadn’t heard from him in years. He asked how she was. She replied immediately with a New Year’s card that wished him well and said that all was fine with her. But it wasn’t. How did he know—or did he? She thought back to the life they had had before the shop. Laughter and loud voices from the street outside filtered through the windows of her shop. She shook her head. This was not the time to think about the past. She had things to do before she...closed.
Her shop was empty. The last customer, a couple from Massachusetts, had left an hour earlier. They had bought her last copy of Goodnight Moon for the daughter of the friends they were visiting. A small purchase like all the rest that day. They had wished her a Happy New Year. She had smiled.
She moved toward the door, but hesitated. She should close now before some drunk came in saying he was looking for a book for his kids. They usually never bought anything. They were just lonely and wanted company. Someone to talk to. She hadn’t minded in the past, but tonight—tonight was different.
She opened the front door of her shop, took down the “Open” flag, and pulled the sandwich board in. She locked the door. She began straightening up the shelves. Why people couldn’t put things back where they came from she never in 30 years had understood. She shook her head and smiled.
She put the receipts of the day away. They were small, as they had been for most of the season. She pulled the vacuum out from behind the counter. It was the last thing that she did each night before she turned off the lights and left. She stopped. She told herself she wasn’t going to cry. She flipped on the vacuum switch and moved down the middle aisle. Her eyes began to fill with tears. She turned off the vacuum. She would finish it tomorrow. She would do the inventory tomorrow. She would finish it all tomorrow.
She put on her coat, tied her scarf tightly around her neck and took one last look at her shop. The tears came again. She picked up her purse, turned out the lights and closed the door. She stepped on to Market Street. The wind off the Bay was strong and cold. It was starting to snow.
Part 2 — Is there life after the store?
The winter came. The cold and the snow. She followed her attorney’s advice. She didn’t open her store again. She took her things from the store. The sketch of the store’s logo drawn by a friend. A couple of pieces of furniture - a bookcase and a small table - that had been in the family for three generations. She left the inventory untouched. Gave the keys to the bank and went home.
She was by herself. She sat in front of the television as if she were paralyzed. Some days she forgot to eat.
Her sister called. Her friends called. She avoided them. When she finally returned their calls, she said everything was fine. But, of course, they knew it wasn’t.
Her reserve of money was running out. She applied for a few jobs in retail. There were only a few, part time, but even for these, no callbacks. She returned to her position in front of the television.
She finally decided to tell her sister and a few of her friends what had really happened. She hadn’t just closed the store to take some time off. She had closed the store for good. She had lost the one thing she had poured her life into. It was like her child. She had created it, nurtured it, and now it was gone.
Her sister and her friends offered her advice and a little money. They cared. She had never really questioned that. But there was little they could do to help. There were no jobs.
Spring came. She talked with her attorney again. She needed to file for bankruptcy. But she needed a job, and she needed to exhaust the little bit of money she had left.
She paid things that she would owe ahead, her mortgage, her utilities. She had always been good at making her money last. She had gotten further on what she had than anyone thought she could. But a job? Retail. She had no stomach for it. She avoided the area where her shop had been. She avoided the other merchants that she knew. Some had been her friends. She felt a crazy sense of shame. Why? Why should she feel ashamed? She had worked hard. Every day. Few vacations in all those years. It was the recession that had killed the store, not her.
She thought a lot about the future now. Maybe she should go back to working with people. She had liked the little bit of that that she had had the opportunity to do when she had worked as a social worker in the schools. But there had been too much paper pushing and too little time for really “helping.” She talked with her friends. Most had worked in sales or retail. They didn’t know very much about “helping people.” About “social services.” And from the tone and expression on the faces of some of her friends, they didn’t think much of “helping people.” Or “social services.”
But she knew it was time to do something. She needed to do something that she would like. Yes, she needed a job, but she didn’t want to do just any job. She wanted to do something like the store. No, not retail. She wanted to do something that meant something to her. The store had given her life’s meaning.
But now there was no meaning. She tried to stay busy. But she could only clean her apartment so many times. She had to decide what she would do now.
It was early June. A card came. It was from Lee. She hadn’t heard from him since December. Just his Christmas card. He hadn’t responded to her New Year’s card. She guessed he had believed what she had said. That everything was just fine.
His card said that he and his daughter had gone to the Old City for dinner, and he had looked for the store, but couldn’t find it. It was gone. The sign was gone, and he thought she might be gone. That she might’ve left the area.
On what? she thought.
He asked if they could have coffee or a drink, “catch up.”
“Why not?”
She hadn’t thought much about Lee during the winter. But she hadn’t thought much about anything. Her brain had sort of stopped. Gone into hibernation.
But now it was spring. She was beginning to think again. To feel some new energy. Maybe there were other things she could do, other than retail. Not working had forced her to make new friends. She had actually gotten to know some of her neighbors, although she had lived in the condo for over two years and had hardly known anyone until the store closed. She had had an opportunity and the time to reconnect with old friends. And that’s what Lee was, an old friend. He had worked in healthcare and social services most of his life. He could help. He would know who to talk to. He would help. She was sure.
Maybe there was going to be a life for her after the store. In the middle of February, with the snow and the cold, she hadn’t thought it possible. That it could ever be. But it was the spring and soon there would be summer. All things were possible on a New England summer.