Twelve Months Later, Ethan Came Back With a Sleeping Newborn and a Broken Suitcase

I hung up before I could say the rest.

The clock over the stove read eleven twenty.

The post office box key was in my apron pocket, so I set it beside the can.

I lifted the twenties out and laid them in stacks.

Ten, twenty, thirty.

The bills were soft from years of hiding.

I counted them once, then I counted them again, the way I check the stove before bed.

Eight hundred and sixty dollars.