Forty One Years to the Penny

“Ending balance, March 31, 1997,” I read. “One thousand, eight hundred forty-six dollars and nineteen cents.”

Kendra typed. She typed some more. Then she bit her lip.

“Mrs. Becker, my screen only goes back seven years.”

“I thought it might.”

“I can’t see 1997 from here.”

“Then pick one you can see, too. We’ll do both.”

That was when the office door opened.

Mr. Stahl has been the branch manager about six years. He is a tall, careful man in his fifties who wears a Rotary pin. I had no quarrel with him before that week.

He came across the carpet with his hands a little out from his sides, the way a man walks toward a horse he is not sure of.

“Mrs. Becker. Good morning. Why don’t we step into my office where we can talk?”

“Good morning, Mr. Stahl. Thank you, but no.”

“It would be more private.”

“I’m sure it would,” I said. “But what was said about me wasn’t said in private. It was said in this lobby on Monday, at one of those desks, and it was typed up where everybody who works here can read it. So I believe I’ll answer it out here. I won’t take long, and I won’t be ugly.”

He stopped walking.

He looked around then. Walt Hendricks with his hat in his hand. Donna Pruitt. The tire shop boy. A young mother with a baby on her hip over by the deposit slips. Nobody was pretending anymore.

“Kendra has picked March of 1997,” I told him. “I’ve read her my balance. She says her machine can’t see that far back.”

“No,” he said slowly. “It wouldn’t. We’re only required to keep seven years.”

“Is that all you kept?”

“No, ma’am. Nobody at this branch has ever thrown out a reel. The old statements are on film downstairs.”

“Then I’d be obliged if somebody looked.”

He turned his head toward the back. “Jan?”

Jan Olson has been the head teller at that bank since before Mr. Stahl could drive. She had been standing by the vault door with her arms folded for some minutes. She did not ask him one question. She just took a ring of keys off the hook and went down the basement stairs.

“That’ll take her a little while,” Mr. Stahl said.

“I’ve got all morning. Kendra, pick me one you can see.”

Kendra swallowed. “Last month?”

“September. Fine.”

That one was right on top, in the register I carry in my purse. I opened it and turned it around and put my finger under the two ruled lines.

“Ending balance, September 30. Three thousand, nine hundred seven dollars and sixty-three cents.”

She typed. This time she did not have to type long.

“Three thousand, nine hundred seven, sixty-three,” she said. Then, louder, as if she wanted it to reach the back wall: “It matches. To the penny.”

Nobody clapped. This is Nebraska. But the tire shop boy let his breath out, and Donna Pruitt said, “Well, of course it does,” in the voice she uses on the church council.

Mr. Stahl took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Mrs. Becker, I owe you an explanation.”

“I’d take one.”

He gave it to me straight, and I will say that for him. On Monday, over the noon hour, my daughter and her husband had come in and asked to sit down with someone. Darren did the talking. He said I had been losing things. He said I had gotten turned around and had to be driven home in August. He said he was worried about somebody getting hold of my card number over the telephone and cleaning me out. He asked what the lowest limit was that the bank could put on a card, and whether it could be done without upsetting me.