Chapter 17: Scratch-Offs

We opened Dean's envelope on my father's desk on Monday night.

Clark set the lamp where the light fell on the blotter.

Lydia stood by the door in her gray coat and would not sit.

Inside were three bundles, each held with a paper clip.

The first was a stack of statements from a convenience store on River Street, Marlow Fuel and Lotto.

The account was in the name of Dean Gaffney.

Every month for five years, the same line.

Lottery, scratch-off, instant.

The amounts ran between three and four thousand dollars.

"Per month?" I said.

"Per month," Clark said. He had a pencil and was adding in the margin of a yard receipt. "Call it forty-five thousand a year."

"For five years."

"Two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars." He looked up. "On tickets."

I thought about the gold card, and the silver box, and the coin I had scraped it with.

I thought about Poppy's shoes, which she had worn through the toes before I was allowed new ones.

"He wouldn't let me spend forty dollars on a winter coat," I said.

Nobody answered.

The second bundle was worse.

Letters from a lender in Toledo, on thick paper, each one stamped PAID in red.

The first was dated four years ago.

Ninety-six thousand dollars, in a gambling marker, signed by Dean Gaffney.

"Mom paid it off," Lydia said, from the door. "She drove up there herself, with a check from the yard."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Gave Me $18, So I Left Him with Nothing from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.