The envelope sat atop my sketchbook, also on my bed—not where I left it.
I glanced back at Auntie Jo through the open doorway, still in her chair, then stepped cautiously into my room, searching every corner and shadow.
The envelope was white, letter size, about half an inch thick. A single word was printed across the front in neat handwriting—
Pip.
The envelope contained five hundred dollars in cash.
4
That night, I had a bad dream. I had a really bad dream.
I was four.
Daddy fastened me into my car seat.
“All secure, Captain Jack?”
“Yep.”
“Your momma hooked you up with a road soda.”
I took the sippy cup from him and brought it to my lips, careful not to spill. Chocolate milk, my favorite.
Momma got into the car.
I remembered this trip.
I remembered every second of it from the moment we left our house until we pulled up outside of Auntie Jo’s apartment building, the same one where we lived now.
We pulled up outside the red brick apartment building, and Auntie Jo came out, an ever-present cigarette lodged between the fingers of her left hand.
I knew what came next.
Momma’s door opened, the two woman hugged. Auntie Jo poked her head in through the opening, smiling at me.
“Josephine,” Daddy grumbled.
She said nothing to him.
This is when things changed.
This is where it was different.
I remembered Daddy getting out of the car, lifting me out and setting me on the ground. I remembered both Momma and Daddy getting back in the car and driving off down the road, watching them disappear over the hill before taking Auntie Jo’s hand and going into the building with her.
I remembered all of that as if it happened yesterday.
That is not what happened next, though.
In this dream, something else happened entirely.
Daddy opened my door, removed something from the seat beside me, then closed my door. I watched him carry that something around the car and hand it to Auntie Jo.
Momma and Daddy got back into the car, and we were moving again.
Daddy swore at all the red taillights ahead. He made a right-hand turn without slowing down. The inertia pressed me into the side of my chair.
Neither of them looked back at me, which was rare. One or both usually did in these moments.
We went over a bridge, followed soon by a tunnel, the car gaining speed.
I felt us going faster, the car speeding up, growing louder.
Daddy did look up then. I saw his eyes in the mirror, but he didn’t look at me. He looked at something beyond me, something behind us. Momma glanced at him, and I saw her look, too, only she looked into the mirror on her door.
Daddy swerved, passing a car moving much slower than us. Our car got louder, faster.
“79 is coming up,” Momma said.
Daddy’s eyes in the mirror again. “Too far.”
His eyes drifted to me in the mirror then, if only a second. I saw the white SUV pull out of a side street directly into our path. He did not.
Momma didn’t, either. She didn’t have time to scream.
When I woke from the dream for the third time, I didn’t dare go back to sleep. I stared at the ceiling until the light of morning reached through my window and tried to grab me under my mound of blankets.
5
Two weeks before Christmas, we had a bit of a warm spell. The previous week’s snow disappeared, leaving behind the brown, mushy earth and faded grass slumbering comfortably beneath. The sky bore only a passing resemblance to day, filled with thick, dark clouds eager to get winter back underway. Auntie Jo insisted I wear my winter coat, a thick monster of a thing made of wool meant for temperatures as low as minus ten. I unbuttoned the coat as soon as I left the apartment and considered taking the ridiculous thing off altogether. It was nearly forty degrees out and climbing as I stood just inside the large iron gates of the cemetery.
Four more envelopes appeared after the first, always on the eighth of the month, always labeled Pip, and always found on my bed, somehow left there while the apartment was vacant. The last arrived on Monday, only two days ago. I considered skipping school and hiding in the apartment, but my teacher, Ms. Thomas, frequented the diner and would no doubt ask my aunt where I was. I considered pretending to be sick, too, and nearly did until I realized I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be alone in the apartment with whoever was leaving those envelopes. I knew it wasn’t Stella. I suspected it might be Ms. Oliver, and that thought was enough for me to abandon the plan altogether.
Each envelope contained exactly five hundred dollars.
I knew I couldn’t give the money directly to Auntie Jo. She would ask where the money came from, and I couldn’t tell her I found it on my bed. I couldn’t tell her the money came from my savings, either. She knew how much I had. I also couldn’t let her see the envelope with Pip written on the front, because that would just lead to more questions. Ultimately, I took the money out of the first envelope, wrapped the cash in newspaper, and left the bundle in Auntie Jo’s locker at the diner. She found the money after her shift the following day and didn’t say anything until we got home. Then she pulled the money from her purse and showed it to me. She thought Mr. Krendal left the package for her. If she told me aliens beamed it into her locker from their mothership circling the Earth, I would have been happy with that explanation, too, as long as she didn’t suspect the windfall came from me. She said she confessed to Mr. Krendal she was behind on the rent and needed an advance. He told her he didn’t do loans or advances. If he helped her out, he’d be obligated to help everyone out, and times were tough. She believed he left the money anonymously simply to avoid potential problems with the rest of his employees. When she thanked him for the money, he simply said, “What money?” and returned to the grill. Sometimes unspoken words say more than an entire conversation.
When the second envelope arrived, I again wrapped the cash in newspaper and placed the money in Auntie Jo’s locker. Again, she suspected it came from Mr. Krendal. She was no longer behind on the rent and considered giving it back. I told her sometimes it rains, we should save it. She tucked the money away in the back of our freezer wrapped in aluminum foil with MYSTERY MEAT written across the package on masking tape.
With the arrival of the envelopes that followed, I hid the money in my underwear drawer. I didn’t want to risk Auntie Jo attempting to return it to Mr. Krendal again, and she no doubt would. Auntie Jo had her faults, but she was a proud woman, and taking charity wasn’t too far off from panhandling in her book. If money got tight again, I’d find another way to get it into her hands.
I looked up from my post beside a large granite obelisk to see Dunk wheeling around the corner on his BMX bike. He wore no jacket, only a Run DMC sweatshirt and jeans. As he crossed through the cemetery gates, he backpedaled, engaging his rear brakes, locking the back tire, and skidded sideways to a controlled stop a few inches from my feet.
“What exactly are we doing here?” He dropped the bike in the grass and leaned against a tall black tombstone, realized what he was touching, then took a few steps back, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “You know I don’t like this place. Cemeteries creep me out. Haven’t you ever seen Night of the Living Dead? Romero doesn’t live far from here. For all we know, he got the idea for that movie when one of these stiffs made a grab for him right where we’re standing.”