The Passbook in the Pink Purse

“Even then,” I said. “We can be kind to Grandma and still keep what’s yours. Those aren’t opposites.”

She nodded and looked out the window at the corn going by, tall and dark green that late in the summer, and she did not say anything else for a while.

The bank in our town sits on the main street across from the old brick building that used to be the hardware store. It is a small lobby with a drop ceiling and big front windows with the blinds pulled up, oak counters, a bench by the window, and three teller stations, though there is hardly ever more than one open.

When we walked in, an older man in work clothes was sitting on the bench by the window, waiting on somebody in the back office. He looked up at us. He looked at my dress, and at Maddie’s tiara, and he gave me a little nod like he had seen stranger things in that lobby.

Jan was at the first window. She saw us come in and her face did not change at all, except that she smiled bigger.

“Well, look who it is,” she said. “The birthday girl.”

I walked up to the counter and set my purse down. I could feel the damp front of my dress against the edge of the oak. Jan did not look at the stain. Not once. She looked at me, and then at Maddie, and that was all.

“We’d like to open a savings account,” I said. “For Maddie. In her name, with me on it.”

“I thought you might,” Jan said quietly. Then, louder, for Maddie: “Have you ever opened a bank account before, young lady?”

Maddie shook her head. She was holding the cards up against her chest again.

“Well, it’s very simple,” Jan said. “First I need to see your mama’s driver’s license, and your Social Security card, and then you get to give me your deposit, and I count it, and then you get your very own book. Do you know what a passbook is?”

Maddie shook her head again.

“It’s a little book that says how much money you have,” Jan said. “Every time you come in, I write in it. Your grandpa Don had one from this bank when he was a little boy. I’ve seen it. He showed me once.”

I had not known that. I looked at Jan, and she gave me the smallest nod.

I slid my license and Maddie’s card and her birth certificate across the counter. Jan typed for a while, asking me the usual questions. Address. Phone number. My Social Security number. Whether I wanted the statements mailed or picked up.

“And this is a minor’s savings, with you on it as the custodial parent,” she said, reading off her screen. “You and Madison. Just the two of you.”

“Just the two of us,” I said.

“All right, Miss Madison,” she said. “What would you like to deposit today?”

Maddie looked at me. I nodded. And then my daughter took her birthday cards, one at a time, and opened each one and took out the money and laid it on the counter in a neat line, like she was dealing out a hand of cards.

Twenty from the Hendersons. Fifty from Amy. A hundred from Pete’s aunt in Jefferson City, who could not come. A hundred from Mike. Twenty-five from her best friend’s family, in a five and a twenty. Fifty from one of the church ladies. Then twenties and a few tens from the neighbors, until the pile came to five hundred.