About this story
When the doctor warns that the house needs steadiness, your father produces an auctioneer's notice instead: an old assembly hall he means to reopen for moving pictures and music. By nightfall he has already bought it, and presses the key into your hand before he has told your mother he spent anything at all.
How it opens
Manchester House still displayed silks as if the mining town had money to spare.
James HoughtonAlvina, the blue roll belongs in the center, where hope can see it.
You climbed down from the window while dust silvered the shop's empty counters.
Mrs HoughtonYour father has rearranged that same hope three times this week.
Miss FrostTwo customers came before noon, and both asked for cheaper cloth.
Choose
Shall I show the cloth people can actually afford?
The window cannot hide what the ledger says.