The Delivery

Three mornings later, J was back at the station.

He’d expected a manageable day. The extra money would be useful, and after too much time indoors he wanted a reason to get up and move. Delivery had the advantage that he knew what the job was. Put the right package at the right door. He could spend a whole shift doing that without managing anybody else.

At the morning huddle, dispatch went over the weather and a reminder about checking addresses against the labels. Somebody asked for a charger. Somebody else had one. Then the routes came through.

Two hundred and two stops. Three hundred and ninety-seven packages.

He recognized one of his old routes. Apartments first, houses after, the longer rural drives in the afternoon. He knew where he could park and which buildings he’d want to do together.

He arranged the shelves so he could reach the next set of packages without climbing over the current set. Labels facing out, envelopes together, the oversized stuff where it wouldn’t trap something he needed first. It had taken him a few bad afternoons to learn that. He saw no reason to have them again.

“Same area?” the driver beside him asked.

“One of my old ones. They’ve apparently built more of it.”

The man glanced at his screen, made a sympathetic noise, and went back to loading his own van.

Before they left, a new driver was trying to fit a long box across the shelves. Each time he got one end in, the other blocked the sliding door.

“Try it along the floor,” J said. “Just don’t put the next bag behind it.”

The driver looked at the label, then at the route. He shifted the bag first. The box went in.

J held the door while he pulled his hand clear. It took less time than explaining why the box would be a problem six hours from now.

At the apartments he parked between two buildings, clear of the fire lane, with the sliding door facing the walkway. The app wanted him to move the van for the second building. He could see its entrance from where he stood. He sorted the parcels by floor and took the third-floor packages first.

The first flight of stairs reminded him he’d been sitting down too much. By the third building his breathing had settled into the work. Up, deliver, down. He kept a hand free for the rail and took a second trip when the boxes required it. There was no useful prize for dropping four packages while trying to carry five.

An audiobook played in one ear. On other days it was a physics talk or a lecture recorded in a room with bad acoustics. For as long as he could remember, he’d been watching science programs, reading popular physics, listening to people argue about how reality worked. He could explain a complicated idea in pictures and analogies and still get stuck rearranging a fairly basic equation; he wanted to know what was actually happening. He liked having his body occupied while the rest of him wandered.

After the apartments, the houses moved well. He knew which side streets connected and which only looked as though they did. Walking, moving, doing something useful. There were worse ways to spend a day than being allowed to get on with it.

The man on the audiobook was talking about ancient roads. J paused him to read the delivery note.

It was in capital letters.

DO NOT USE DRIVEWAY. DELIVER TO FRONT DOOR. NOT GARAGE.

J stopped at the bottom and looked up. Old concrete curved uphill between the trees. He could see a roof, although at that distance it might belong to a different family with its own opinions about driveways.

He found the box. It was one of the heavy ones.

“Of course it is.”

He got his fingers underneath, tucked the phone into his vest, and started walking. Beyond the bend, the driveway continued uphill. He stopped to change his grip. The cardboard pressed a neat line into his wrist.

At the top, a man stood beside an open garage holding a hose.

“Could’ve brought that up,” he called.

J stopped at the foot of the steps. “Says not to drive on the driveway.”

“Oh, is that still on there? That was when we had it done.”

J looked down. Grass had established itself in one of the joints.

“Right.”

“Sorry about that. Here, where do you need it?”

“Front door, if that’s okay.”

“Garage is fine.”

J looked at him for a moment, then nodded. They found a dry spot just inside. The man moved a bucket out of the way and helped lower the box.

“Appreciate it. Those things weigh a ton.”

“They do.”

“I’ll get that note changed.”

“That’d help the next person. Thanks.”

The man offered him water. J held up his bottle and said he was good. They wished each other a good day.

He liked the man. That ruined several perfectly good complaints.

At the van he drank, then went on. Out, walk, photograph, back. He didn’t run over loose gravel or jump down from the van. His knees had been involved in this arrangement long enough to deserve a vote.

When the houses began drawing apart, he parked in the shade and put the route on break. He could have been farther ahead if he’d kept pushing, but the route algorithm remembered the pace. J wanted enough time to take his breaks tomorrow too.

He drank some water, then opened the recorder on his own phone. There were already notes about dreams, questions from lectures, and paragraphs for the book that had seemed better when he was saying them. He made these often enough that finding the useful ones was becoming a separate job.

“Note for the book. Entropy. People say disorder, but—no, I’m doing it too. Think about a bag of deliveries. There’s one order you want them in, and a lot of ways they can be in the wrong order. It isn’t that the packages want to annoy you. Although some of them make a good case. Does that make sense? Need a better example. Something that doesn’t require knowing what I’m doing all day.”

He saved it with the others. For the rest of the break he sat with his feet up and did absolutely nothing useful. A bird landed on the fence and stayed there until he was ready to leave.

Beyond the next rise, the land opened into dry grass and scrub oak. Houses sat far back from the road. Some driveways had numbers. Others appeared to consider the mailbox sufficient evidence.

At one, the note asked him to leave the package at the back door. The gate beside the house stood open.

The dog inside it stood still.

J stopped with one foot on the gravel and the other still in the van. The dog looked at him. He looked at the dog. It was a substantial animal, with no visible interest in the customer instructions.

“All right,” he said, and put his foot back.

He called the customer and waited. The dog showed no sign of reconsidering.

A woman answered and apologized. She would get the dog.

J watched her come through the gate, take hold of its collar, and tell it what a good boy it was. The dog accepted this assessment and went indoors.

“Sorry. He normally stays with me.”

“No problem. Where would you like this?”

“Back steps, please. I’ll show you.”

They went around the house. There was a wooden glider on the covered deck, old enough that the arms had worn smooth. One of its metal supports had been repaired with a newer piece.

“Haven’t seen one of those in a while,” J said.

The woman brightened. “This was my dad’s. My brother wanted to throw it out.”

“Your brother was wrong.”

“I keep telling him.”

She showed him where her husband had fixed it. J asked how they’d managed to get the old bolt out. She laughed and began telling him.

He wanted to hear it. He could picture the job: a bolt that wouldn’t move, three tools that ought to have worked, somebody finally fetching a fourth. The phone in his hand had gone dark. He put it in his pocket.

In the end her husband had cut the bolt off with a hacksaw. She showed J the new one, then told him how many times she’d suggested doing that before her husband agreed.

“Sounds about right,” J said.

He thanked her and left with the question answered.

At lunch he found a place where he could park properly, put the route on break, and called Lisa.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey. Eating.”

“Good.”

“I was going to anyway.”

“Mm-hm.”

He looked in the bag. “Did you put these cookies in here?”

“No. Someone broke in and packed your lunch.”

“Decent of them.”

She laughed. He could hear a drawer closing.

“What are you up to?”

“Trying to find a place for that tray.”

“Thought we had things.”

“We do. They’re all in other things.”

He laughed with his mouth full and had to stop chewing. She told him not to choke. She wasn’t driving all the way out there.

“You would.”

“I’d complain.”

“I’d expect that.”

They talked about dinner. The green-rimmed bowl from the other day was waiting for tomatoes, and he said he’d get some on the way home.

“When do you think?” she asked.

He looked across at the work phone. “If I finish this lot and they let me come back, maybe the usual time.”

“So you don’t know.”

“No. But I used more words.”

She said she’d leave his food where he could find it.

“Did the tray get a job?” he asked.

“Keys, for now. I’m doing the drawer underneath.”

“There’s a lot in there.”

“There are keys to things we don’t own anymore.”

She’d found the spare for his old padlock and the key they had never identified. She wanted to clear a space for the charging cables without winding them around everything else.

The work phone lit up. His hand had started toward it before he noticed.

He turned it facedown.

Lisa was explaining why the little paper envelopes were staying with the keys. He listened until she had finished, then asked whether she wanted the spare van key moved too.

“No. You’ll look in the drawer. I’ll leave it there.”

“Thanks.”

He could hear paper rustling as she put it back.

After they hung up, he ate the rest of the sandwich. Beyond the fence the grass kept changing color in the wind. He stayed long enough to finish the cookies too.

He turned on the radio while he put his lunch bag away. They were talking about 4I/Kestrel again. Another night’s observations had helped astronomers refine its path through the solar system. Someone was explaining why its size was harder to pin down. J glanced at the next address, trying to place it. By the time he was listening again, they were discussing traffic.

The afternoon took him farther out. He made a note of a loose porch step for the next driver and kept going. Gradually the shelves emptied. One bag folded flat, then another. He put them behind the seat and had enough floor space to turn around without apologizing to a box.

When he finished, he sat for a moment before messaging dispatch. His shirt had dried stiff between his shoulders. He had a little stone in his shoe that he’d been meaning to remove for three hours.

All done. Anything else?

He took off the shoe.

The reply arrived before he’d put it back on. Another driver needed a rescue. Fifteen stops. Dispatch sent him the meeting point.

J looked at the empty shelves. Twelve minutes ahead. He’d expected to spend them driving back.

“That’s where that went.”

He sent Lisa a message saying he’d be later, shook out the stone, and drove to meet the other van.

The driver was younger than him and looked tired in a way that wasn’t all walking. He had the side door open and was already pulling packages together.

“Sorry,” he said.

“What for?”

“This.” He gestured at the bag. “Had some stuff going on this morning. Got behind.”

J took the bag. “Happens.”

He didn’t ask what stuff. If the man wanted to tell him, he could. They checked the transfer together. Fifteen stops, twenty-three packages.

“Thanks, man.”

“Go home when they let you.”

The driver smiled at that, then looked at his phone.

J put the transferred stops in order. The clouds over the western ridges had begun to join up while they were moving the boxes. He checked the weather before pulling out. Afternoon thunderstorms; the radar had rain still west of this part of the route.

He put his rain jacket beside the passenger seat where he could reach it. The other driver lifted a hand as they parted.

J knew most of the rescue area, though none of it had been on his morning list. Beyond the last subdivision, the road narrowed between fences. The long drive to the house with the cooler was near the end. He was pleased to see it. He could use another bottle of water.

The shade under the trees grew darker with each stop. At the last bend before the familiar drive, he could see the house’s upper wall and its uneven peaks of roof across a lower field, between two stands of oak. He’d always thought it looked taller from here.

He called it the Mr. Wizard house. Only to himself. Dark timber, pale walls, sections of roof meeting at angles Lisa would have names for. As a kid watching the science show, he’d imagined Mr. Wizard ought to live somewhere like this. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the actual house. The drive crossed a culvert and climbed between scrub oak. He eased past the branches near the passenger mirror and came out into the turning circle.

A pot had fallen against the porch railing. Otherwise the house looked the same as last time.

J carried up a flat box, checked the address, and set it clear of the door. He took the picture. Beside the cooler, a handwritten sign thanked the drivers for coming all the way out there.

“You’re welcome,” he said toward the doorbell camera.

He went to stand the pot upright. A little of the spilled soil went back in. Most didn’t. He brushed his hands together, leaving the sweeping for somebody who owned a broom, then returned to the cooler.

There was water and several drinks that were nearly water but wanted to discuss it. He chose water.

“Thanks.”

Behind the snack basket sat a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. Dark cord ran around it both ways. A pale tag had been slipped underneath.

He saw the word driver and leaned closer.

To JIU, the delivery driver who always says Thanks.

J kept one hand on the cooler lid.

JIU.

He read it again. Those were definitely his initials. JIU belonged to paperwork and people who had known him a long time. Customers knew the van, sometimes his first name.

He set down the water and moved the basket enough to see the rest of the tag.

For Lisa and Kira. Please take it home.

“That is very weird,” he said.

There were ordinary ways to know those names. People knew Lisa. People knew their daughter. He’d spoken to customers, worked with people, told stories. Somebody who knew him might have left it here. Somebody who’d read his work, even. The initials were unusual, but unusual wasn’t impossible.

He picked up the parcel. No return address. No carrier label. Nothing that would tell him whom to thank. But it named all three of them and asked him to take it home. Somebody had meant him to find it.

He looked toward the camera. “Thanks. I’ll take it home.”

The oak leaves turned over in a gust. He took the water and the parcel and started back toward the van.

As he stepped off the porch, his foot reached the gravel before he expected it to. For a moment the van seemed closer too, as though there were less driveway between them than he’d just walked. He stopped with his weight on that foot.

The van stood where he’d parked it. He shifted the parcel under his arm and looked down at the step. Low, but he’d already been up it. That was odd. Probably he’d misjudged it coming back down. His legs had done enough stairs today to have an opinion of their own.

He walked on. The next few steps landed where he expected. A few drops struck the windshield while he was opening the door.

He put the parcel inside his backpack, tucked the bottle where it wouldn’t roll, and checked the next stop. Two left. The first was six minutes away.

He fastened his seat belt and eased out of the turning circle. The branches by the drive were moving now. At the culvert he slowed and watched a sheet of leaves travel across the gravel ahead of him.

Beyond the oaks, the western ridge had disappeared into rain. Cold air came through the window. He closed it and turned onto the road as the rain crossed the field toward him.