My Father Tossed a Blue Savings Passbook into the Mud at Cedar Ridge

I looked at the numbers written in heavy blue ink.

Five thousand dollars.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“You’re driving a car with a hundred and ninety thousand miles on it, Samantha.”

“I don’t need your charity.”

“It isn’t charity, sweetie,” he said.

He pushed the check an inch closer to my hand.

I stared at his signature in the bottom right corner.