Forty-One Thousand Dollars and a Yellow Paper Envelope

I stared down at the four words stamped across the metal.

“He made me promise,” Elias said.

I put the key in my coat pocket and kept the envelope in my hand.

Elias leaned on the shears with both elbows.

“Not until you came to the house first.

If you came at all.”

“A year,” I said.

“You sat on this for a year.”