They were not coupons at all, but cash register slips from three years ago, each one detailed with the exact price of basic groceries. One receipt from a cold Tuesday in November listed milk costing three dollars and forty cents, a loaf of white bread, and a bag of yellow cornmeal. Every single receipt in the bunch had a small number written in red ink at the top, always the number forty-eight, followed by a neat checkmark.
I turned the blue plastic organizer over in my hands, looking for a name or a date, but there was only Margaret’s faint handwriting on the inner flap, listing the weeks of the winter of three years ago. Why would she keep records of old bread purchases so carefully when her own bank account was down to twelve dollars? I folded the receipts back into the plastic slots and slid the organizer into my purse.
