Tuesday he came back, right on time, with the pen already out of his pocket. I had the coffee ready. I had something else ready too. A folder. Manila, the cheap kind from the office store.

He sat down and slid his contract across the table and started in again about how he’d take care of everything, and he reached out, and he did it again. He patted my hand.

I opened my folder. I laid it out the way I used to lay it out for the men who came in trying to inflate their bids. Line by line. Here is the wholesale on your shingles, Dale. Here is the markup you’re taking, and that’s fine, everyone marks up, but here is what yours actually is. Here is the labor per square in this county. Here is the tear-off you double-charged. I had the supply house quotes printed. I had it all. I did not raise my voice. I have never once gotten what I wanted by raising my voice.

His face did a thing I had seen many times across a desk. The smile stayed but the eyes left it. He started talking faster, about quality, about how you get what you pay for, about how those supply house numbers don’t include his insurance, his this, his that. I let him finish. I always let them finish. And then I said my piece. Eight words. I said, “Don’t pat my hand. I already hired Frank.”

He didn’t have anything for that. He gathered up his clipboard with the metal flap and his pen and the contract nobody was going to sign, and he said something about how I’d regret going with some cut-rate operation, and I told him Frank was anything but, and that I’d estimated jobs in this county since before his truck was built.

That part felt good. I’ll admit it. I am not going to pretend it didn’t.

What I did after he left is the part that matters more, though. I took everything in that folder, the references, the numbers, the recording I made of what that second woman told me with her permission, and I filed a complaint with the state licensing board. With my paperwork attached. All of it, organized, dated, the way I organized things for thirty-five years. I am not the only widow he patted on the hand. I knew that the second Carol said fine, fine, everything’s fine. And I had the time and I had the knowledge and frankly I had the anger, and I figured I might as well point all three of those at something useful.