Thirty-Nine Million Dollars and a Brown Folder on the Kitchen Table

I laid the brown folder in the exact center of my desk.

My mother had two green glass bowls of green beans on the dining table when I got to my parents’ house at six.

My father sat at the head of the dark table in his beige work trousers.

My sister Ranata sat across from my chair in a blue silk blouse, with four gold bangles on her left arm.

“Pass the pot roast, Fay,” my father said.

I passed the heavy platter across the white tablecloth.