I.

The best place in Riverton for beef is Arlo’s. Just ask Denise Gross. She won’t go anywhere else for beef. Did you know that Denise and her husband Alex used to own a restaurant? Alex grew up in the restaurant business. That’s all he’s ever known. He didn’t go to college. He always figured he would take over the family business: Papa’s Dairy Bar. But then his father died of a heart attack, and his mother, Mrs. Gross, sold the restaurant and flew off to Croatia with this guy named Niko who had been a regular at the Dairy Bar for about a year. No one heard from Mrs. Gross for six months, and then she came back home without a penny to her name. She rented an apartment downtown, right over the drug store, and didn’t speak to anyone about what had happened. She took a job at United Lumber, doing the record keeping and ordering office supplies, which is what she had done at the restaurant. Eventually, the owner, Mr. Middlecamp, asked her if she’d tutor his son, Sanford, because he was having trouble in the sixth grade. She started meeting Sanford at the library on Wednesday afternoons, and after a couple of months his grades went right up to A’s in every subject. I am not kidding you. Mr. Middlecamp was so grateful he told her she could have fifty percent off all lumber purchases for the rest of her life. But Mr. Middlecamp’s wife, Janine, wasn’t happy about that. Sure, she was overjoyed that Mrs. Gross had set Sanford straight, but she didn’t think it warranted a lifetime discount. What if Mrs. Gross were to get ideas? What if she decided to buy in bulk and start selling materials to contractors at a discount? Hadn’t she run off with that strange Croatian man and stolen her child’s inheritance without so much as a goodbye?

II.

Janine kept the pressure on Mr. Middlecamp until he finally caved in and called Mrs. Gross to tell her he wouldn’t be able to keep his word. She said she didn’t care and that she was just glad to have had the chance to help the boy. Her life, she said, had taken some bad turns, and this recent success had given her a glimmer of hope about the future. She explained to Mr. Middlecamp that her only son Alex was no longer speaking with her, but she knew that he was struggling to make ends meet. He and Denise were hoping to buy back the old family restaurant, which was still sitting empty, and Mrs. Gross asked Mr. Middlecamp if he might have any ideas about how to help them out. She didn’t know what he could do, but she told him she would be grateful for any kind of effort he could make, as long as he did it furtively, and without any mention of her name. Mr. Middlecamp was moved by the request, and he put the word out to a handful of other business owners around town to see if he could take up a collection to help Alex Gross buy back the family restaurant. He didn’t get many takers. Almost no one had been friendly with the old Mr. Gross, and when he died there weren’t many tears shed around town, especially among the business owners. But one man who asked to remain anonymous chipped in a hefty amount, and within the year Alex and Denise were up and running, astonished that an unnamed person had suddenly put them on their feet again. Alex wanted to draw a younger crowd to the restaurant, so he turned the place into a retro burger joint with a soda fountain and a fully stocked candy counter. It didn’t work, though, and the place closed before its first anniversary. Denise went back to school to finish her PhD in plant science, and two years later she began teaching at the state college.

III.

Alex took a job as a chef at one of the dining halls on campus, and they both seemed content. As it turned out, Sanford Middlecamp continued getting straight A’s all through high school, and when he graduated he earned a science scholarship for a project he had done categorizing the varieties of moss in the greater Riverton region. He received the award and got his picture in the paper. Mr. Middlecamp thought Sanford might attend Harvard or Yale, but he ended up deciding to go to the state college and in his junior year he worked as a laboratory assistant for Denise. At first, Denise had no idea who he was, but Sanford began telling her about his father’s lumberyard and the way old Mrs. Gross had tutored him. Denise and Alex had never reconciled with Mrs.Gross, and so all of this was a surprise to Denise. At one point, Sanford asked her if she had ever discovered who gave the money to help them open the burger joint years ago. Denise said she hadn’t, and she wondered how he knew about it. And that was how Denise and Alex found out that Mr. Middlecamp had worked on their behalf at the bidding of Mrs. Gross. After thinking about it long and hard, Alex and Denise decided to pay Mrs. Gross a visit. It had been fourteen years since they had spoken, even though they lived within ten miles of each other. By that time Mrs. Gross had remarried and was managing the accounts at her new husband’s appliance-repair business. She was at home hanging out laundry on a Saturday when Alex and Denise pulled into her driveway. At first she was annoyed, since she though it was a customer coming to bother her husband on his day off, but when she saw that it was her estranged son and daughter-in-law she threw a couple of clothespins into the air and ran out to embrace them.

IV.

Within weeks of their reunion, Mrs. Gross’s new husband died suddenly of a heart attack. She was devastated, of course, and Alex and Denise pitched in to help out with all of the arrangements and to see that Mrs. Gross was taken care of. I attended the wake, which was one of the biggest I’d ever seen in Riverton. I don’t know why, exactly. Mr. Blackburn, the appliance repairman, was never a popular fellow, and Mrs. Gross had all but faded into obscurity. I guess maybe it was just one of those things. At any rate, there were cars parked all up and down Lorelei Lane, and the receiving line went clear out the building and down the stone path into Patterson Park. After I paid my respects, I spoke with Denise. We went to high school together, and I hadn’t seen her for years. She looked great, and I told her so. She seemed excited, despite the sad occasion, and she took me aside and said that old Mrs. Gross had decided to leave the appliance-repair business to Alex, and even though Alex had no experience with appliances, he figured he had enough experience fixing steam tables and meat slicers to give it a go. And anyway, he would mainly be managing a small staff of repairmen who had already been employed there for years and years. Denise said that Alex seemed genuinely happy for the first time in years. He had liked his job at the college alright, but this felt to him like a means of repairing the damage that had been done when he missed out on inheriting his own father’s business. Apparently, he and old Mrs. Gross cried and cried together once she made him the offer. Denise said it was the most beautiful moment she’s ever experienced in her life, and she expects she’ll never see anything so heartwarming again. She’s never had kids, you know. I told her I was glad for her and Alex, and that I was sorry for her loss. On my way out, she said she hoped I would come to the funeral and reception afterwards. She said she had ordered all the meats from Arlo’s and that their beef was, by far, the best in the entire region. I told her I would come, but the next day I had to spend two hours at the DMV and I just went home and sat down in front of the television and fell asleep in my coat and shoes.