$58,340.17.
I dropped the paper on the table like it had burned me.
“No,” I said. “No. No, no, no. I can’t. We can’t. Mrs. Whitaker, no.”
“It’s not for you,” she said calmly. “It’s for Willa. So you can’t say no. It isn’t yours to say no to.”
“Where did this come from?”
She folded her hands on the table.
“The first Thursday you worked here,” she said, “I came home and opened the oven. Do you
remember?”
“Yes.”
“I stood there looking into that clean oven, and I thought about you crying in the parking lot.
And your little girl in the car. And I went to my desk, and I wrote two checks. One for you. A hundred dollars. And one for a college savings account in your daughter’s name. A hundred dollars.”
I stared at her.
“Every Thursday,” she said. “For eight years. Two checks. When I raised yours to a hundred and twenty-five, I raised hers too. Four hundred and twelve Thursdays. And the account grew a little on
