“Thank you so much, Paul,” I said.

“Thank Irene,” Paul said.

“She’s the one who kept those paper wrappers up in her attic for twenty years.”

I walked down the dim hall past the cafeteria doors.

The long wooden tables were folded against the wall, wiped down and waiting for Monday morning.

When I turned into my driveway, the sun was sinking below the tree line behind the garage.

The concrete where ninety-one thousand dirty pennies had lain five days earlier was completely bare.