A Decade For Nothing novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: The Whole Amount
At midnight I watched from the upstairs window while Nan carried a quilt down the front walk and knocked on a car window.
She came back inside without a word and put the kettle on.
"Don't," she said, when I opened my mouth. "It's a quilt. It isn't a pardon."
At seven I found Lydia sitting on the bottom porch step with the quilt around her shoulders and a paper cup in her hands.
Joel had left her a thermos on the rail, with a note that said only: Nan's coffee. Do not insult it.
She stood up when she heard the screen door.
"I'm not coming up," she said. "I've been here since five. I wanted to be sure you were awake."
"I'm on a week off. I'm always awake."
She nodded, put the cup on the step, and reached into the quilt.
She held out a long white envelope, and then a second, thicker one.
"The first is a cashier's check," she said. "Thirty-eight thousand four hundred dollars, made out to you. I moved it out of my account at eight o'clock last night, before Dad's lawyer could freeze anything."
I took the first envelope and did not open it.
"The second one is mine," she said. "Eleven thousand. It's my own savings, from the clinic. It's for the dinner you paid for, and the deposits."
"No."
"Levi."
"You didn't ask me to feed those people. I chose that."
"Then it was a gift, and I don't take gifts from you this week."
She almost smiled, and then she remembered where she was.
I opened the first envelope and looked at the number.
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