“Put this in the box under the bed,” he said.

“Nate,” I said, holding the envelope against my palm.

“You built that motor out of spare parts on your winter weekends.”

“We have forty thousand eight hundred dollars now,” Nate said softly, his voice steady and flat.

“Counting your diner tips and the hospital overtime.”

I looked down at the envelope in my hands, feeling the thickness of thirty-six hundred dollars through the white paper, then looked back up at his face.

He didn’t say anything else.