Small Enterprise

By Peter Bowden

The rain stitched the morning into gray cloth, soft and constant. The boy sat next to his father in the front seat of the station wagon, windows fogged from their breath, a stack of newspapers piled beside him. His father drove slow, careful over the wet streets, the wipers shoving water aside with a steady, tired rhythm. At every mailbox or porch, the boy rolled down the window and flung a paper out, the rain biting his arm each time.

His father kept one hand on the wheel and the other resting easy across the top of the seat, a quiet anchor. Sometimes he pointed — There’s a house, or Watch the puddle. They didn’t talk much, except for the necessary words that made the work smooth. Once, when a paper missed its mark and landed in a ditch, his father laughed low in his throat, reached over, and tousled the boy’s damp hair.

By the time they finished, the sun was trying its best behind the clouds, turning the wet streets into rivers of silver. They sat in the car for a minute, the engine ticking softly, the smell of wet paper and old vinyl filling the air between them. The boy leaned his head against the seat. His father sipped coffee from a battered thermos. No hurry. No words. Just the sound of the rain letting up and the quiet knowledge that they had done the morning together.

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