My Future Doesn't Have Room for You novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Number on the Screen

Esther feeds her breakfast and Hallie calls Social Security and learns she can be her own payee and what ten years of deposits add up to.

I was up before anyone in the house, because I hadn't really slept.

The basement was cold, and Kayla's jacket had soaked a wet shape into my pillow.

I put on my coat and went out the side door with the snow shovel.

The blizzard had dropped two feet.

Every winter I cleared our walk, then the walk next door, because the woman who lived there was seventy-one and had a bad hip.

Her name was Mrs. Overholt, but she had told me years ago to call her Esther.

I was halfway down her path when her front door opened.

"Hallie Braeburn, you're going to freeze your ears off."

She stood in the doorway in a green quilted vest with a dish towel over her shoulder.

"I'm almost done."

"You're done now. Come in."

Her kitchen smelled like butter and coffee.

Esther put me at the table and cracked three eggs into a pan without asking how I wanted them.

"I keep a separate pan for you," she said. "Nothing in this house has ever touched a peanut."

I looked down at my hands, because my eyes had started to burn.

Esther had known about the allergy since I was nine.

My own family still hadn't learned it.

She set a plate in front of me, with toast and real butter.

"Eat first. Then tell me why you look like that."

I ate everything.

Then I told her about the bus stop, the pizza and the ski pants.

I did not mean to tell her about Penn, but it came out too.

Esther put down her coffee.

"Pennsylvania," she said. "Good for you."

"Don't say anything to Aunt Janet. She doesn't know."

"I won't." Esther pulled her chair closer. "What did the email say about the aid?"

I took out my phone and read her the line about the survivor's benefit.

She said nothing for a moment.

"Sixteen hundred and forty," she said. "And she gives you three-eighty."

"She says that's all there is."

"I worked in a bank for thirty-eight years, honey. I've watched a lot of people explain where a number went."

She tapped the table once.

"You turned eighteen in October. Social Security will talk to you directly now. Call them and ask who the payee is."

"The what?"

"The person they send the money to on your behalf. Do it here, on my phone, so it doesn't show up on yours."

I didn't want to call.

Ten years of being told to be grateful had taught me to flinch at the idea of asking.

Esther dialed the number herself and put it on speaker.

We waited forty minutes on hold.

She made me a second plate of toast while we listened to the same piece of music over and over.

When a woman finally answered, I gave her my name, my birthday and the last four digits of my number.

"I'd like to know who receives my survivor's benefit," I said.

I heard her typing.

"You're listed as a child beneficiary, Ms. Braeburn, on your mother's record. The representative payee is Janet Bellinger."

"How much is the monthly benefit?"

"One thousand, six hundred and forty dollars."

My chest went tight.

Esther's hand came down flat on the table beside mine.

"Now that you're eighteen, can I receive it myself?"

"Yes. You can apply to be your own payee. If you're a student in school, you can receive it until you finish. I can start that now."

"Please."

"The change takes effect with the next payment cycle, about two weeks. We'll mail a notice to the current payee."

Esther and I looked at each other.

"Can you tell me how much has been paid out in total?" I asked. "Since I was eight."

The keys clicked again.

"Over ten years, the deposits come to a little more than one hundred and ninety-six thousand dollars."

I had never held that much money in my head.

I tried to picture it, and all I could see were two matching cars in the snow.

"Ms. Braeburn? Are you still there?"

"I'm here," I said.

When the call ended, Esther turned the phone face down.

"Kayla's car and Brett's car," she said. "What did they cost?"

"I don't know. Thirty thousand each, maybe."

"Maybe."

She stood up, took a pen from a jar, and wrote 196,800 on the back of an envelope.

"The notice goes out to Janet by Tuesday," she said. "After that, she knows you know."

I looked at the number and then at the clock on her stove.

It was seven in the morning, and I had to walk home and make the twins' breakfast.

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