Chapter 13 - The Seal Broke Under My Hurt Hand
I kept the brown envelope on the kitchen table for a long minute before anybody touched it.
It sat where I'd set it after pulling it out from under the white fabric. The corners were soft from my hands. My name wasn't on it. No address. Just the sealed flap and the weight of whatever was inside shifting when the table shook. Mom breathed from the doorway where the man had helped her sit in my chair. He stood on the other side of the table, not close, his hands at his sides.
"You open it," Mom said. "You carried it this far."
I looked at her. "Now?"
She nodded once. "I heard enough. We don't guess anymore."
That was permission. My right hand shook when I picked it up. The bandage on my fingers caught on the paper. I had to use my left thumb to work under the flap. The glue held, then gave with a dry rip. A piece of the kraft tore with it.
Inside were bills and folded papers. I slid them out onto the wood. Three twenties and two tens folded once. Clipped to them was a white receipt slip and a typed note on half a sheet. My hands left a faint smudge on the edge.
"Read it out loud," Mom said. "All of it."
I unfolded the note. The typing was straight and plain.
"For medicine costs. Remainder on completion. Do not enter back rooms. Deliver, confirm, leave. Report contact."
I read it twice because the first time my voice went thin. The receipt slip had a pharmacy name printed at the top and an amount circled in blue ink. Eighty dollars. Under it someone had written, Paid pickup - hold 48 hrs.
I set the money down flat so it wouldn't blow. "It's for medicine," I said.
The man didn't reach for it. He looked at the note like he'd seen it before and hoped we hadn't.
"That's what I was told to do," he said. "Deliver it to the girl at the door. Confirm someone was home. Leave. Don't go inside."
Mom's hand tightened on the chair arm. "Who told you not to see me?"
He glanced toward the bedroom doorway, then back. "The man who gave me the envelope. He said the order was private. Keep it simple."
"And what did you see?" Mom asked.
He was quiet. The sewing machine ticked as it cooled beside us. Light from the window moved a little across the money.
"I saw you," he said. "I saw her sewing with hurt fingers to finish work. I saw the bottle empty. I saw what was under the fabric." He paused. "That wasn't in the instructions."
I counted the bills again without meaning to. Eighty dollars. The pharmacy hold slip. The clock above the refrigerator said twenty past three. The store closed at six and the bus ran once an hour past our road.
"We can get it now," I said to Mom. "It's enough for the pickup. We can call the pharmacy."
Mom didn't look at the money. She looked at me. "And the rest of it?"
I knew what she meant. The white fabric order was still unfinished on the machine. The man who'd sent the envelope expected something back. The note said remainder on completion. If we spent this and didn't finish, there would be nothing holding him off.
"If we take it," I said slowly, "we have to finish her dress by morning or we lose the rest. If we don't take it, we keep what's underneath safe, but—"
I stopped. I didn't say the rest out loud. But the empty bottle was still on the counter where we'd left it.
The man put his hand flat on the table, not on the money, just beside it. "If I report I didn't see anyone, they keep sending orders like this," he said. "If I report I did, they'll want more than a delivery next time."
Mom leaned forward. "So you have to choose what you write down."
"Yes," he said.
May you like
"And we have to choose what we spend," Mom said.
Nobody moved the bills. The seal lay broken beside them, a thin brown strip curled up. I felt the sting in my bandaged fingers where I'd torn it. The choice sat there whole and unmade: quick medicine tonight or protecting what we'd hidden and what the unfinished work still owed.
