When the waitress came around, he ordered a soda and handed her the folded cardboard. Michael ordered enough food to feed an army. ‘You’re so fidgety,’ Michael said. ‘I don’t know what we’re doing here. We can’t afford to blow off a job.’ ‘First of all, I’m not blowing it off. I’ll pick it up over the weekend. Second, what do you know what we can afford?’ Nick gave him a look. ‘I do the bookkeeping.’ ‘For the business. Not for the family.’ ‘What’s the difference?’ Michael laughed. ‘A lot. If we only had the business to live on, I’d be worried.’ ‘We don’t?’ ‘No.’ His brother frowned. ‘Have you been worried about that?’ ‘About how we were going to get through the winter? Yeah.’ Michael winced. ‘Look, we’ll be okay through the winter. Mom and Dad had life insurance, and there’s not a lot left, but there’s some. I try not to touch it, because I never know when we’ll have a real emergency, but it’s more than enough to fill in the cracks.
