Chapter 4: What You Cost Us

I did not get in the car.

I stood on the curb with my backpack on both shoulders and my thumb on my phone.

Before I walked out of the bank, I had started a voice recording and slid the phone into my back pocket.

It was still running.

"Hazel," Dad said. "Honey. Come on. It's hot out here."

"I'm fine."

"Your mother is upset. She said some things she didn't mean."

"She meant them."

He sighed, the long patient sigh he used on Maisie when she dropped her ice cream.

"Okay. Okay. Let's start over."

He reached into the glove box and took out an envelope.

It held two hundred dollars in twenties.

"Take this. Buy yourself something for graduation. A nice dress, a pair of shoes."

I looked at the money and thought of the sixty-one thousand dollars.

"Where did the rest of it go, Dad?"

His smile did not move, but his hand did.

"The rest of what?"

"The account Grandma opened for me. I have the statement. It says you took it out yourself, every time, in person."

"Hazel."

"Three hundred twelve dollars."

"That money was never really yours," he said.

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