She looked at me, then at the tin, and reached for her phone without explaining a thing.

“I need to call the branch manager.”

That was the moment I understood that Mama hadn’t just hidden money in a pantry.

She had been getting ready — for years — for the day I would finally find it.

Chapter 8 — Mrs. Wooten

The branch manager was an older woman named Mrs.

Wooten, and she brought me back into a quiet glass-walled office and shut the door.

She looked at the chipped enamel tin sitting on her desk, and then at me, with a sympathy so deep it frightened me a little.