Conductor by Cate McGowan

We kept the job site running after the accident. Hauled pallets. Poured concrete. Took our breaks by the fence with nobody saying much. The scaffolding stayed up, though no one climbed it for days. Raoul’s name was still on the schedule, and we didn’t erase it (we said we were waiting on HR, but we couldn’t bear to see a blank space).

Someone hung his gloves, still damp and limp, on the hook by the water cooler as if he were just taking five.

At lunch, we passed our phones around to show the picture from that morning—the crane caught in the sunrise, half in shadow, half gold. Nobody talked about what happened. We just worked quieter, and when the sky clouded over, we told ourselves it was just the weather.

When inspectors came, we stood back and let the foreman talk. Nobody looked at the scorched beam. Nobody brought up the storm.

Later, Raoul’s brother, Miguel, dropped off a cardboard box he pulled from Raoul’s trailer; inside were Raoul’s boots, an old Thermos, and that silver keychain shaped like a fish that he always carried. Miguel said he didn’t know what else to do with that stuff. We left the box by the lockers, untouched.

That Friday, after the pour, Jorge lit up a joint, though he’d quit months ago. Didn’t offer it around. Stood by the fence, the smoke curling off him.

Someone said they thought they saw Raoul’s car in the back lot, in the same spot where he always parked. We didn’t look. We couldn’t bear to check.

The gloves stayed put over the cooler. They dried and got stiff. The singed fingertips bent funny. We passed them every day.

By the second week, the crane turned again. The wind picked up. Gray skies held. Every time the thunder cracked, we got nervous, eyes going up without thinking.

The inspectors started coming by to check the grounding cables twice a day. And even on clear mornings, someone would glance at the sky before stepping onto the rebar lattice.

No one said Raoul’s name anymore. Not even by mistake. But those gloves stayed put. Nobody touched them. One time, the new guy went to hang his gear there, and Sean stopped him with a look and said, Nah, man. Not that hook.

By the third week, the humidity broke. The heat came back, the sun high and mean, drying the slabs with fine little lines like maps of some place broken. The noise came back, too. Radios turned up, machines keening, guys yelling across the yard like usual. But we still took our breaks by the fence, facing east, backs to the scaffold.

One morning, the gloves were gone. Just the hook left, bare.

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CATE McGOWAN — Cate is the author of four books. Her poetry collection Sacrificial Steel is forthcoming from Driftwood Press in 2025. Brill published her memoir-essays, Writing is Revision, in 2024; Gold Wake Press released her novel, These Lowly Objects, in 2020; and her debut, True Places Never Are (2015), won the Moon City Press Short Fiction Award. Her work appears in Norton’s Flash Fiction International , Glimmer Train, North American Review, Shenandoah, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere. Visit her at www.catemcgowan.com.

Art by OJO VICTORIA ILEMOBAYO — Ojo is a Nigerian Literary Enthusiast and a smartphone photographer whose works have appeared in Christian Century, Christian Courier, Ake Review, Typehouse, Penumbric, Thema, Sunlight Press, Eboquills, Non-Binary Review, A Coup of Owl, Firebrand, Mad Swirl, Flash Frog, Eco Punk, Mande, Loveliest Review, Toad Shade, Does it Have Pockets, Gemini, Exist Otherwise, All My Relations, Breath & Shadow, Lolwe, JAYLIT, Scop, MAAR Review, and other online literary platforms.