By August the new board had done what it said it would do. The operator list was published with criteria: licensed, insured, three years of commercial experience, no unresolved complaints. My name was on it. Thirty-nine other names were on it, including four operators who'd been quietly removed years ago for reasons nobody could remember. The co-op account system got an audit. The newsletter got a new editor, who wrote a front-page piece about transparency that mentioned no names and was clearly about Carter's mother.
Dennis Boyd came back to town in September to file for divorce. He'd been living inland, and there was nothing left to argue about, and Clara signed the papers at a lawyer's office in Fairview and drove straight to my shop and sat on the bench outside for an hour before she
