April 3, 2026
The flags near the register came down on a Friday.
Kim folded the first, just like she’d been taught in Girl Scouts thirty years ago. Triangle, triangle, triangle. Stars up. She set it on the counter beside the register and reached for the second.
Her hands shook.
It was the coffee, she told herself. Definitely the coffee. Too much caffeine, not enough breakfast, the usual excuses. But she knew better. She took a breath and adjusted her oversized glasses.
The bell above the shop door chimed. Kim didn’t look up. Probably someone else with an opinion about flags.
“This is the place?” A young woman’s voice.
“This is it.” An older man.
Kim turned and saw a teenage girl just inside the doorway, one hand supporting an elderly man’s elbow. He used a walker, but the girl stayed close. The man was thin in that way very old people become, whittled down to the essentials. But he stood as straight as he could manage. He had a distinguished military bearing, even at his age. Eighty-something? Ninety?
The girl was eighteen, maybe nineteen, tops. Thick dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Worn jeans and a Pax River High School hoodie. Her eyes were green with a hint of blue, maybe even gray.
“Good morning,” Kim said, setting down the second flag.
The man’s eyes went to the folded flags on the counter. Then to the empty bracket on the wall where the second flag had hung. The girl followed his gaze.
“Having them cleaned?” the man asked.
Kim almost lied. It would’ve been easier. “No. Taking them down.”
“For good?”
Kim sighed. “Maybe.”
He nodded a slow, wordless reply.
The girl watched Kim, then back at the man as if reading his face for what might come next.
He moved toward the counter, and she stayed close. Her pace matched his. All rhythm and respect. The walker’s tennis balls squeaked against the hardwood floor. When they reached the counter, the man touched the folded flag with one finger. “May I?”
“Of course,” Kim said.
He picked it up with both hands, careful to keep it folded. He closed his eyes for a peaceful pause. Then he gently set the flag down. “You know, I remember when flags meant we were all on the same team,” he said.
Kim looked at the girl. Then the flag. Then the clock.
“I’m sorry,” she managed. “I just can’t anymore. I’ve had two complaints this month. One woman said the flags were offensive. Said they stood for things she couldn’t support. The next week a man told me I was being unpatriotic because I only had two. Said the cafe down the block has a row of them. He said a real American would have them in every window.” She exhaled. “I can’t win. So I’m just—done.”
“So you are.”
“I need the business.”
The man studied Kim’s countenance. His eyes were blue, faded but clear. Kind.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Kim.”
“Kim?”
“Kim Garbe,” she smiled.
“Ms. Kim Garbe. It’s a lovely name. I’m Ron.”
“Ron?”
He winked. “Master Sergeant Ron Drummond. Retired. Long retired.” He gestured to his young friend. “This is Annie. She volunteers at Meadow View and has been kind enough to help an old man get out of the house.”
“It’s not like that,” Annie corrected. “I wanted to come.”
Ron smiled at her. “I just moved to Meadow View a few weeks ago. Transferred from another care center up north. Annie said there was a good bookstore in town. One that sold crossword puzzles.”
“My mom works at Meadow View,” Annie said. “She thought you might have the large-print crossword puzzle books.”
Kim surveyed her empty store. Yarn in baskets along one wall, books on shelves lining the other three. Reading nook in the corner with two chairs that hadn’t been sat in since Christmas.
“Not much of a crowd today,” Kim said. “The puzzle books are in the back corner. I can show you.”
“We’ll find them,” Annie said. “Come on, Sergeant.”
The two walked to the back of the store, Annie close in stride. Kim heard them talking quietly, then Annie laughing. She picked up the second flag and started folding. Triangle, triangle, triangle.
Kim heard books being pulled from shelves and put back. Annie reading titles aloud. Ron giving his opinion on each. They sounded easy together. Comfortable.
Kim finished folding and set the second flag beside the first.
Two flags on the counter. Two empty brackets on the wall.
Done.
“Ms. Kim, we found some good ones,” Ron called out as they appeared at the end of an aisle, Annie carrying three puzzle books.
“He’s very particular,” Annie said, smiling.
“I know what I like.”
Kim rang them up, calculating the profit in her head. “$18.52 for you today.”
Ron pulled out his wallet and retrieved a twenty dollar bill, his hands trembling. “You know what I keep thinking about?” Ron asked.
“What’s that?” Kim said.
“July 4. This July 4. Independence Day.”
“What about it?” Kim asked.
“Surely you know. It’s our 250th. America’s 250th birthday. I’m ninety-one years old. Been thinking I’d like to make it to the 250th. See what that looks like.”
Kim did the math. April to July. Three months. She noticed the thinness, the careful way he moved, how Annie stayed close, but without hovering. Three months felt like a long time.
“I bet you will,” Kim said. “You look great.”
“Tell that to my doctors,” Ron laughed. Rough and raspy. Tired. “Not much working right inside this old soldier. But I’m still here.”
Ron looked down and ran a finger along the flag once more, tracing a stripe. “My brother Charlie died a few years ago. Right before he passed, he made me promise.”
Kim waited.
Annie stood like a statue.
“He said, ‘Ronnie, you have to make it. See the 250th for both of us.’ So I promised him I would.”
“That’s a perfect reason to hang on,” Kim said reverently.
“Only reason I got left.” Ron smiled. “Anyway. Thanks for the puzzles.”
They said goodbye, but as Ron and Annie neared the door, he stopped and turned. A deliberate pivot. A soldier’s stare. “You know what I think?” he said. “I think you should put those flags back up.”
“I really can’t afford to lose customers.”
“Can you afford to lose yourself?”
That landed.
Ron smiled again, much warmer this time. “We’ll see you around, Kim. It’s a nice store. ‘’Good yarn,’ what a name.”
“Really great store,” Annie added, looking at Kim with an apology in her eyes. “We’ll come back.”
“I’d love that,” Kim said.
The door chimed again as they left, and Kim watched through the window as they carefully made their way down Main Street back toward Meadow View Care Center, just a couple blocks away on the other side of the Pax River bridge. Annie walked on Ron’s right between him and the street, close enough to catch him if he stumbled, but seemingly far enough away to let him feel independent. They stopped, and Ron seemed to be pointing across the river. Annie nodded, listening.
Kim studied the flags on her counter. Then the empty brackets on the wall. Then back out the window. Ron and Annie were crossing the bridge now, small figures against the April sky.
July 4, Kim thought. Three months away. He won’t be alive to see it.
She knew it. A certainty sitting in her chest like a stone. Three months was too long. And Ron Drummond looked like a man running out of time.
But the girl? Annie. She seemed like someone who didn’t know how to give up.
Kim wondered which one of them was right.
New chapters posted every Monday and Thursday until April 23.