Marcus’s hand slid off my elbow. I watched him look at the shoebox on the desk, at my careful pencil dates on two hundred and thirty-eight envelopes, and I saw the exact second he understood I was not confused at all. “Ma,” he started, with that leaky-faucet voice, “these are complicated financial things, you don’t want to upset yourself.” The manager did not blink. “Sir,” she said evenly, “the withdrawal marked management. Please walk us through it.” He looked at me for rescue, and for the first time in five years, I gave him nothing.

Then the elder services gentleman slid one page across the desk. “And this,” he said, tapping the transfer that left my account on the third of every month, made out to a name I had never heard, a Miss someone. “Perhaps you can tell us who this woman is.” Marcus went the color of dishwater. Because that was the fire I had not yet lit, and I was about to learn, right there in that office, exactly who my money had been keeping comfortable for four years of thirds.