Chapter 17: April

The card table was green felt over a folding frame, and I bought it at a church sale for eleven dollars.

I set it up on the first Saturday in April, in the corner of the gym by the water fountain.

Gina stood watching with her arms crossed, her eyes full of something she was trying to hide.

I unpacked a laptop, a calculator, a stack of manila folders, and a laminated sign I had printed at the office.

FREE BOOKKEEPING. YOUTH PROGRAM ONLY. NO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ROOF.

"What's the roof?" she said.

"I'm told it leaks."

"It leaks a little."

"Then you'll thank me when I find the grant for it."

She shook her head and went to open the doors.

By ten o'clock the gym was loud with rubber soles and jump ropes, and I was elbow deep in nine years of receipts.

She had kept everything.

Every invoice sat in a shoebox, in order.

With a sticky note in her cramped handwriting that said things like PAID, or LATE, SORRY, or Ask Rae.

The last one was new.

I laughed out loud.

The gym's real books were a glorious mess.

Gina had been writing the gloves into the same column as the electric bill, and the van insurance had been paid twice in March.

By noon I had a color-coded sheet, and by two I had found $3,400 in an old donation she'd never logged.

"You're a witch," she said, reading over my shoulder.

"I'm a tax professional's daughter."

"Is that different?"

"It's the same thing, but it comes with guilt."

One of the older kids drifted over to the table with his gloves hanging around his neck.

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