“She can sell it to a jeweler on Grand Avenue.”

“She tried,” Sarah said.

“It was gold plating over brass, Clara.

It was worth twelve dollars.”

I didn’t answer her.

I kept my brush moving along the seam of the wall, filling every bare patch until the gray drywall was all covered in yellow.

At ten the next morning, I sat across the oak desk from Nancy in the main lobby of the Oak Creek Bank branch.

Nancy opened a heavy green ledger and took a set of blue signature cards out of the top drawer.