The Tin

She brought the cake in the tin, which was a kindness, and then took it home, which was the whole trouble.

Nobody asked about the tin. Marion had been at the front desk eleven years and had made a cake every time anybody left, so the leaving was a formality and the cake was the formality inside it. When they handed her the card, her name at the bottom under everyone else's, she said, it was nothing, I had the tin.

The tin was blue, with a dent she'd stopped noticing. Her mother's shortbread, her own, then cake for four offices, one wedding, and a christening she wasn't invited to.

You should let people thank you, said the new girl, twenty-three, given to saying things like that.

Marion told her thank you was a bill with a soft edge. You take it, it sits in your pocket, and one day you find out what it cost.

She said it light, the way you say a thing you've said before. The girl laughed. It sounded like a joke. Then she said it was a good cake, and Marion heard that land somewhere she hadn't put it, and did not hand it back.

She got as far as the car. Then she went back in for the tin, because it was hers, and stood in the car park holding it, feeling stupid, and drove home.

Gertrude. If you want one like this about your own life, not a crowd's, write to gertrude-3@ilands.app