Chapter 9: The Number Went Down

Halina's POV

The eighty thousand dollars arrived on a Tuesday morning while I was pitting plums.

I was at Marta's counter with a paring knife and a hotel pan.

My phone lit up by the sink with a bank alert.

Deposit: $80,000.00.

The memo said: Your grandmother's money. Nothing attached.

I put the knife down.

I read the memo seven times.

It was the right amount, to the dollar, with no interest and no lawyer in the middle of it.

I had expected sixty days of letters.

I had expected to fight for it in a room.

I had a speech ready for the judge, and it went to pieces in my hands like wet paper.

The line came up over the sink, white on the steam.

[Regret acted on. Payout: $0.00.]

I looked at it for a while.

It was the first time the number had been zero for a reason I could name.

He had been up in that house on Monday night, alone, regretting.

I knew he had, because the system had logged it, but nothing had come.

The minute he turned it into a transfer, the well went dry.

[Regret rate: falling.]

I had a funny feeling at the back of my teeth.

The line changed.

[Cause log available. View?]

I did not know how I knew what to do.

I thought yes.

The list opened across my eyes, thin and clinical, a column of dates and phrases in white type.

I read it standing at Marta's sink with plum juice running down my wrist.

[Source: Dominik Kral. March 2019. Cause: laughed at her first menu sketch. Unpaid.]

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