Chapter 22: The Story

"It started with a twenty-dollar ticket," I said.

The red light on the camera did not blink.

"I was an assistant manager at a pet store, and I had eleven thousand dollars saved. I wanted to open my own store with my best friend."

Behind the reporter, two hundred people stood in the parking lot, and not one of them talked.

"I bought my father a scratch-off for his birthday. It was the last twenty I had that month."

"And it won," the reporter said.

"It won five million dollars."

"And you asked him for a loan."

"Forty thousand. With interest. In writing."

"What did he say?"

I looked at the lens.

My father was in the corner of my eye, by the ladder, and I did not look at him.

"He said, 'You figure it out,'" I said. "So I did."

A murmur went through the crowd and stopped.

"That's it?" the reporter asked. "That's the story?"

"There's a part I haven't said out loud yet," I said. "I don't think it's mine to say."

"Whose is it?"

"My father's," I said.

"Vicky."

It was his voice, from behind the cameraman.

Everyone turned.

He had put down the toolbox.

He walked across the asphalt in his steel-toed boots, past Tyler, past my mother, with the vest still zipped to his chin.

His hands were shaking, and I saw him close them.

The cameraman looked at me, and I nodded.

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