He asked the trust officer how much it would be each month before he asked the doctor how long she had.”
I read it two times.
Then I read it a third time, running my finger under the words.
Lakeland State Bank.
A trust principal of one hundred forty thousand dollars.
Six hundred fifty dollars a
month to Ray Whitfield as guardian until I turned eighteen.
My mother had jotted the figures in the margin, small and tidy, as if she were pricing lumber.
The statement for my paid-off van loan was still clipped to the fridge under a magnet, thirty-eight thousand four hundred dollars, balance zero.
I had looked at that zero plenty of times.
That night it just sat there.
I worked my thumb under the flap of my mother’s envelope.
The first line was my name.
“Thomas, if you’re reading this, I’m gone,
and I need you to hear this from me.”
