Chapter 23: Every Penny

Caleb came first, on Monday morning, with his mother holding his elbow.

He stood on my landing in a clean shirt with a white envelope in both hands.

"Three thousand five hundred," he said. "I sold my laptop and my car. I'm baking at my mom's shop until Christmas."

"Caleb, you don't have to sell your car."

"Yes, he does," said his mother.

I took the envelope.

It weighed almost nothing, and it was the first piece of Halyard to come back to me with a face on it.

His mother reached into her purse and drew out a stiff cream card with a gold border.

It had my picture on the front and the words *In Loving Memory*.

"The church printed two hundred of these before you got famous," she said. "You might as well keep one."

"Thank you."

"The Mara Fund board came down from the vestibule yesterday. I took it down myself."

She patted my cheek, and Caleb looked at his shoes.

"Come for Sunday dinner when your chest is better," she said. "He's cooking."

Nolan came on Tuesday, to the Vogel Ridge office downtown, with his mother and a cashier's check for his savings.

It was nineteen hundred dollars, and it was everything he had.

I took it, because he would not have forgiven me if I hadn't.

Then I put the page from the bank in front of him.

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