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Mastuzek taking it and moving under the light to get a better look, then shaking his head no, and Louis holding another one up, until they finally find the right size. That’s the transcendent moment for Louis, the look that passes between him and Harvey Mastuzek, the recognition of rightness—the discovery of the rubber washer that will do the job. But there’s more, Gracie.”
    And Gracie thought, Of course there’s more. It is the essence of Louis to give more, to reveal, even as he himself remains unrevealed. My shadowed boy, throwing light upon everything, the brilliance of your gaze causing us to look everywhere but at you. “Yes,” said Gracie, “more.”
    “Then he tells me about the return trip up the aisle, past all the same stuff, but the perspective is different now, not just because they are moving up the aisle instead of down it, but because the discovery of the absolutely right washer has colored his view, has put a glow on everything, an aura. At last, they get to the cash register and money changes hands, thirteen cents—that’s one buffalo nickel, and one Jefferson nickel, and three pennies. It takes Louis ten more minutes of description to move Harvey Mastuzek away from the cash register and out the door, and when it’s all over, Louis lifts his eyes and peers at me from behind his baseball hat and his scarf. He wanted to see if I had gotten it. Of course I hadn’t. I was exhausted. I had heard the story, but I hadn’t heard the story hidden inside the story.”
    Atlas knelt beside Gracie and lightly touched her arm. She looked up at him. “This morning, I got it,” he said. “I was brushing my teeth and it came to me, like Louis timed it to go off that way, after a night’s rest.”
    “The story inside the story.”
    “Yes. The way he saw it, Harvey Mastuzek could walk into the store only one time. It was Mrs. Meem all over again, as Louis perceived it. The magic abundance of the store overwhelmed him, too—the curative potential, the cascade of visual and sensual stimuli—but Harvey responded the opposite of Mrs. Meem. Where she had to immerse herself again and again, to possess because simple contact was not enough, Harvey Mastuzek had to stay away, look once, and then stay away. Like a quick glance at the burning sun. So that’s why, in Louis’s mind, Harvey Mastuzek’s three minutes in the store merited two hours of recollection. And no doubt he gave me the abridged version. A premiere moment in Harvey Mastuzek’s life took place before Louis’s eyes, so Louis had to give it the meticulous attention it deserved.
    “But wait, right? The shelves of Malone’s Hardware Store contained no magic, just hammers and saws, and duct tape, and putty knives. Where’s the magic that compelled these people? The fireflies, Gracie. Squeezed in between the roofing nails and the wire clippers, or somewhere, who knows where, Louis saw the different-strength fireflies. Because Louis saw them, he believed Mrs. Meem and Harvey Mastuzek saw them, too. And the fireflies imbued everything in the store with their luminescent halo. Here’s another way of putting it:
To a certain kind of person, a hardware store is a holy place
. There, that’s a good moral to the story.” Now Atlas was beside Gracie, and together they sat, arms around each other as they watched their distant son moving in the grass of the hillside. When Atlas spoke again, it was in a whisper.
    “So last night, Gracie, I got up out of bed and saw Louis out among the fireflies, not wearing his baseball hat or scarf. I tried tosee his face in the dim moonlight. I tried to look, as I have never been able to in all these years. But even from a distance, and in the softest light of fireflies and moon, I couldn’t. He gave me a chance to see him, because he must have sensed by then that I was there. But I turned away. The slightest turn of my head, away. He knew it. How many times have I done that, and how many times has he known it?