She handed him the insurance card. Then the yellow paper. Then her old plastic license, the one with the corner clipped off. She had turned seventy-one on the third of the month. She had renewed that same week at the license bureau down in the courthouse basement, and the new card had not come in the mail yet. That yellow paper is what they give you in the meantime. Every person in the state of Minnesota has carried one at some point.
He looked only at the yellow paper.
“What’s this supposed to be?”
“That’s my temporary license, Deputy. The card underneath is the one it replaces.”
“Looks homemade.”
“It does look that way, doesn’t it,” she said, as pleasant as a church greeter on Easter morning. “They have never once made a nice one.”
He did not like that she agreed with him. I watched it cross his face. You could almost see him looking for a place to put it.
