I was pouring coffee into Cal’s travel mug when the closure notice came through on his phone. The coffee slopped onto the counter. He read the message twice, then set the phone facedown like it might stop being true.

Thirty-one years at the same plant. He was 59. The closure was set for the end… of the year, and there wasn’t another factory job nearby that paid what he made.

I wiped up the coffee. Cal kept looking at his phone.

“I’ll be all right,” he said.

I nodded, because that was what I did when I didn’t know how to help.

The part I didn’t know then was that, two weeks before the last day, a man from corporate would walk straight to Cal’s station and put down a badge with Cal’s name on it.

Cal never told me about the overtime.

I knew a man named Daryl had moved to another plant years ago. I knew he’d had a sick little boy. I knew Cal had worked some extra shifts. But I didn’t…