I stood there a moment longer than I needed to.

My father had taught me what a savings account is for.

It is for the day you need a door, and the money to walk through it.

And Jonathan had just locked that door too, with my own forged signature on the key.

I stood at that teller’s window and felt, for the first time in the whole ordeal, something close to despair, and I think it is important to admit that, because the account so far may make me sound steadier than any person actually is.

For a long moment the zero on that screen seemed to be the whole truth of my situation: no money, no practice, no residence of my own, nothing but forty-two dollars and a man who held every instrument of my life.