The Sister Who Kept the Towns Money

“Your mom is going to be okay,” I said. “She has some things to fix. That’s all. You didn’t do anything, honey.”

“Okay.”

“Eat your pancakes.”

She nodded and sat back down. Mom kept her arm around her.

Afterward, the Lions ran the rest of the breakfast as though nothing had happened, which is the thing small towns do best. Bud Garner got me a plate and did not let me pay. Terri hugged me by the coffee. Mrs. Odell kept the footprints in her lap the whole morning and would not let anyone hold them but herself.

A woman I barely knew pressed a twenty into Landon’s hand for sorghum and told him he was the bravest boy in the county. He bought three bottles and gave one to Mrs. Odell.

We left at ten. In the truck, Jared did not start the engine for a long minute.

“You did it right,” he said. “I’d have done it worse.”

“I’m not sure I did it right.”

“You did it so nobody got hurt but the one who earned it.” He turned the key. “That’s about all you can ask of a morning.”

I went home and lay down on the sofa and slept for three hours, a plain dead sleep, the first in six weeks.

The doorbell woke me at ten after two.

Nell stood on the porch in her work sweatshirt, with her hair pulled back and a plain white envelope in both hands. She did not look like the woman who had waved a spatula at me that morning. She looked like the girl who used to climb into my bed during thunderstorms when we were small.

I opened the screen door. I did not invite her in, and she did not ask.

“Becca.” Her voice caught. “I’m not going to ask you to forgive me. I just need to say it to your face.”

“Then say it.”

“I took it. All of it. The car died on Route 15 in July, on the way to a shift, and I had two hundred dollars in my checking account and a girl to feed. And the page said $3,200, and it was just sitting there with my name on it.”

She wiped her nose with the back of her wrist.

“I told myself I’d put it back by August. I swear to you I meant to. I thought if I could just pay it back before anyone noticed, it would be like it never happened. Then August came, and I didn’t have it, and every day I didn’t say it got easier than the day before.”

“And the email?”

“I wrote it myself.” She said it to her shoes. “I made the logo out of a picture on my phone.”

That one hurt more than the rest. I let it hurt. I did not say anything to make it easier.

“That’s not an excuse,” she said. “I know it isn’t. I was only trying to tell you what was in my head.”

“I know it’s not an excuse.”

“I’m so sorry, Becca.”

She held out the envelope. It was warm from her hands.

“There’s eleven hundred dollars in there. It’s what I could get together today. It came out of the account I was keeping for Hailey’s braces, and I’m going to have to tell her why.”

I did not take it yet.

“And there’s this.”