“How many did we get done?” Noah asked from the kitchen doorway.

“Three thousand exactly,” I said, pointing at the neat rows of fifty-coin stacks lined up on the counter.

I looked down at the heap of dirty paper towels soaked in black lube oil and green degreaser.

Three thousand scrubbed pennies sat clean and shining in the red coffee can on the kitchen table, while eighty-eight thousand five hundred grimy coins still lay strewn over the cold concrete of my driveway outside.

By eight thirty Monday morning, the black gear oil under my fingernails had dried into dark crescents that soap couldn’t touch.