The drive-through lanes were quiet under the wide concrete canopy, the mid-afternoon shadows stretching long across the hot asphalt.

I pulled into the lane farthest from the teller window and let the station wagon idle while I took my checkbook out of my canvas purse.

I had a four-hundred-eighty-dollar check from the Oakhaven Grain Elevator for my quarterly bookkeeping work, made out only to Nora Vance.

I pressed the red call button on the gray metal teller terminal beside my window.

“Welcome to First Farmers,” a young woman’s voice chimed through the speaker.