The numbers 11-04 were pressed deep into the plastic, nearly invisible unless the card was tilted toward the window. I ran my thumb over the indentation, twisting my mother’s silver ring on my right pinky finger. Why would my grandmother write a date, or perhaps a ledger code, on the back of a simple gift card?
The mystery of it kept me quiet during the three-mile drive to her empty house. The roads through Millersburg were slick with Ohio sleet, the gray slush spraying against the underside of my car with a heavy, wet sound.
I parked behind Uncle David’s blue pickup truck in the gravel driveway. When I walked through the kitchen, the house felt cold, the thermostat turned down to fifty-five just as Margaret had kept it to save on heating oil.
I found David in her bedroom, the drawers of her cherry dresser pulled out and tilting toward the faded carpet.
“She had to keep the bankbooks somewhere, Clara,” David said, his heavy brass keyring chiming against his thigh as he shifted his weight.
