Walter Higgins's morning began not with an alarm, but with the precise, metallic thunk of his mailbox flag being lowered. 6:02 a.m. Every day. Rain or shine. He'd done his route for forty-two years, and retirement four years ago had done nothing to break the ritual. From his living room window, with a cup of tea steeped exactly four minutes, he watched young Danny Espinoza wrestle the USPS truck into position and begin the day's loading.
Danny was a good kid. A little slow, methodical. Walter approved of methodical. It meant you cared about the details.
He sipped his tea. Earl Grey. Hot. The world outside was softening under a gentle, misting rain that beaded on the hydrangeas across the street. Agnes Higgins's hydrangeas. No relation, but she took pride in them, and he took a quiet, neighborly pride in her pride. It was how things were done.
His own small, tidy house was a museum of his career. Framed maps of his old route. A plaque for "Forty Years of Safe Driving." Shelves of nicknacks given to him by residents over the years—a carved seagull, a glass paperweight with a lighthouse inside. Every object a story.
The phone rang, a jarringly loud sound in the quiet house. He knew who it was before he picked it up.
"Walter? It's Brenda. At the café." Her voice was like being pelted with pebbles, cheerful and abrasive.
"Morning, Brenda." He took another sip of tea.
"I need your help. The historical society wants to do a display for Founders' Day next month. 'The Delivering Heart of Willow Creek.' We need photos, stories… you are the post office, Walter. Can you come down later? Bring your scrapbooks?"
Walter sighed inwardly. His scrapbooks were his, a private history. But Brenda was a force of nature. Resisting her was like trying to stop the tide with a broom.
"I can stop by after my walk," he said, noncommittally.
"Perfect! You're a saint! I'll have a cinnamon bun waiting!"
He hung up. The clock on the wall ticked loudly in the silence. 6:17 a.m. Time for his walk.
He pulled on his waxed cotton jacket and his old, comfortable boots. His route was always the same. Down Sea Grass Lane, onto Spruce, then a left onto Main Street. He was a creature of habit, a walking landmark. People set their watches by him.
As he passed the Quick-Stop, Mr. Feng, already open, gave him a single, slow nod through the glass. Walter returned it. Their daily silent communion.
On Main Street, the town was slowly coming to life. Ray was already up at Ocean Avenue Automotive, the bay doors open, the sound of an impact wrench echoing in the damp air.
"Walter," Ray grunted, wiping grease from a part Walter couldn't identify.
"Raymond. Sheriff's car still giving you trouble?"
"Alternator's shot. Told him it would be. Nobody listens to Ray 'til they're stranded on the side of the road." Ray tossed the rag onto a workbench. "Heard they approved the lighthouse money."
"So I understand."
"Fifty grand for paint," Ray shook his head. "I could rebuild three engines for that. Put 'em in the old Miller boys' trucks. Get 'em to work. That's a investment. But what do I know?" He didn't expect an answer.
Walter continued his walk. He saw Lena Flores struggling to get her daughter's stroller up the curb cut outside the library. He quickened his pace.
"Allow me," he said, taking the front of the stroller and lifting it smoothly onto the sidewalk.
"Oh, Mr. Higgins! Thank you. Mia's getting so heavy," Lena said, flustered.
"It's no trouble." He peered at the little girl, who was regarding him with serious, dark eyes. "She has her mother's looks."
Lena smiled, a true, warm smile that lit up her tired face. "Thank you. I'm just returning some books before work. Jasper's been keeping us up all night, so we're a little slow today."
"Jasper?"
"Our cat. He's decided the middle of the night is the best time to… I don't know, practice parkour? We're exhausted." She laughed, but it was edged with real fatigue.
"Cats are mysterious creatures," Walter offered. He'd never had one. He was a man of order. Cats were chaos on four paws.
He left her at the library door and continued, his mind already filing the interaction away. Lena Flores. Tired. Cat issues.
His walk ended, as it always did, at the diner at the end of Main Street, "The Wharfside." It wasn't on a wharf, but nobody cared. It was the domain of Dotty, a woman who had been serving pie and coffee since Walter was a young man.
He took his usual booth by the window. The vinyl seat sighed under his weight. Dotty was there with a pot of coffee before he'd even settled.
"Usual, Walt?"
"Please, Dorothy."
She poured the coffee, black as pitch. "Heard from my sister in Salem. Her boy's thinking of moving here. Wants to 'get out of the rat race.'" She snorted. "I told him the rats here are just slower and have better manners."
"It's a different pace," Walter agreed.
"It's a dying pace," she corrected, not unkindly. "But it's home." She looked out the window at the misty street. "Saw the NCC freighter came in last night. Atlantic Star. Big one. You know what they're hauling?"
Walter shook his head. "Nobody knows what NCC hauls. That's the point." The corporation was a closed book. It bought, it sold, it shipped. The town saw the ships come and go, but the contents were a mystery. Fertilizer? Electronics? Car parts? It was all the same to Willow Creek. It was just the hum of money being made somewhere else.
He drank his coffee and watched the town wake up. He saw Sam Gunderson's truck rumble past, heading towards the marina, the driver's face a mask of grim concentration. He saw Mark Keating's clean SUV glide past, heading towards the NCC gatehouse. Two different worlds, moving on the same street.
He was the ghost in this machine. He saw the connections everyone else missed. He knew who was behind on their bills by the mail he used to deliver. He knew which marriages were strained by who got the letters. He knew the town's rhythms, its secrets, its slow, inevitable decline.
He finished his coffee, left a five-dollar bill on the table—exact change, always—and braced himself to face Brenda Wu and her cinnamon bun.
As he stepped back out into the mist, he caught a strange scent on the air, cutting through the usual smells of rain, coffee, and exhaust. It was faint, sweet. Like rotting flowers. He sniffed, trying to place it. It was gone as quickly as it came.
Probably just Dotty's garbage can out back. Or something from the NCC cannery, a new batch of waste.
He dismissed it. Just another detail in the endless, quiet story of Willow Creek. Another note for the scrapbook nobody would ever see.