Aj Blackbird's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

The five hundred dollars sat on the counter for two days. Aj bought bread and cat food, but the bank seal on the wallet stayed in her mind. She had to know who the money belonged to. Only one person could tell her. The seal was pressed by a bank, and she knew a man who worked at one. She hated asking him almost as much as she hated her mother. But she pulled on her long black dress and went. The bank smelled of oil and old wood. Behind the counter stood a bearded man in a green vest, cleaning his round glasses. Kevin Myers. He had known her since high school. He had known her mother too. He looked up and did not smile. "Aj Blackbird," he said. "I froze the debt in your name. You're welcome for that." He set the glasses back on his nose. "So what does a Blackbird want now?" Aj laid the wallet on the counter. Her hand shook. "I need to know whose money this is." She turned it over and showed him the faded seal in the leather. "It came from my mother's house. I think she hid it." Kevin leaned close. He touched the seal with one finger. His eyes narrowed. He had a way of reading a thing that made her feel seen through. "I know this mark," he said quietly. "This wallet belonged to a customer. An old woman. She reported five hundred dollars stolen from her home. Two years ago." He looked up. "Your mother cleaned her house. Did errands for her." Aj's stomach dropped. "So it's stolen." "It's stolen." Kevin folded his arms. "The owner is still alive. I can give you her name and where she lives." He studied Aj's face. "Most people who find money like this keep it. Buy their supper. Say nothing." "I'm not my mother," Aj said. The words came out hard. Something shifted behind his glasses. Not warmth. Respect, maybe. He wrote an address on a slip of paper and slid it across. "Return it in person. If you don't, and it turns up, it lands on you. Same as the debt did." Aj took the slip. The bread and the cat food flashed in her mind. Weeks of eating, gone. Her cats would go hungry again. But keeping the money made her the thing she ran from her whole life. "Thank you," she said. She meant it, and she hated that she meant it. "Don't thank me," Kevin said. "Just don't come back with another mess." Aj walked out with the wallet in her fist and the address in her pocket. The five hundred dollars was no longer hers. It never had been. Now she had to face a stranger her mother had robbed, empty her only cushion, and walk home with nothing but her own clean name.