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from his pocket and emptied the contents on the desk, spreading the currency in front of him.
    His salary was thirty-five cents an hour. In the past week, he had worked twenty-eight hours. He counted the money, and it came out to $9.80. Exactly what it should be. He’d never held this much money before. After a moment of thought, he removed $1.50 and transferred it to the pocket of his coat, which he then refolded and returned to the bottom of the cedar chest. He placed the balance of his clothes back on top of the coat and closed the chest. The rest of the money he returned to the envelope.
    #
    The soft glow of twilight illuminated Elm Street as Marvella Wilson approached the house. She had opted to take a walk after dinner.
    As usual, Claire dominated her thoughts.
    Claire. Her miracle.
    After two miscarriages, the doctors had said Marvella would never be able to carry a child to term. Then, against the odds, she’d had the little boy. The poor thing hadn’t lasted two hours. Always just “the little boy.” He never had a name. She and Ernest couldn’t bring themselves to give him one. It was just too hard.
    They’d resigned themselves to being childless, so it came as a shock when, two weeks shy of Marvella’s fortieth birthday, old Doc Anderson announced, with more than just a little concern, that she was pregnant once again. It posed a terrible risk to her health, and Doc Anderson hinted at alternatives. But she and Ernest desperately wanted a child. And seven and a half months later, to the surprise of everyone, Claire came bounding into their world, vibrant, full of life, mischievous, curious, irrepressibly happy. A true blessing. Claire made up for all the pain, all the longing. She was a gift from God. She lifted the clouds and brought the sunshine.
    And that man had no right to take her.
    It was in the summer of 1919. Or was it 1920? So many years ago, now. Claire, a young woman, yes, but still a child in Marvella’s eyes, had been anxious to get out and “see the world.” Ernest, rest his soul, agreed that it might be a good thing for Claire to experience life outside of Jackson.
    “She won’t be happy until she does,” he pointed out, always so pragmatic. “You know how she is. If we don’t let her go, she’s liable to up and go on her own.”
    Of course, Ernest had been right. So, while Marvella argued against it, in her heart she’d known it was no use.
    It was decided. Claire was to stay with Ernest’s cousin, Nancy. Widowed when her husband, who had shipped out to France with the 79th Infantry Division, had failed to return from the Argonne Forest, Nancy had converted her home on the south side of Chicago into a boarding house. She reported that there were jobs to be had at the Mercantile Exchange where two of her boarders were employed.
    Claire had worked hard on her shorthand, and had spent hours on the old Munson typewriter that Ernest had found and restored. Countless evenings, after Marvella and Ernest went to bed, Claire sat at the dining room table banging away at the keys, the click-clacking producing a surprisingly comforting lullaby to which she and Ernest would nod off.
    And so it was that, over twenty years ago now, Claire bid her goodbyes and boarded the train for Hammond, with connections to Chicago. Marvella’s last image of Claire had been a beaming face in the frame of the Pullman window, eyes bright with excitement and anticipation of the journey ahead.
    Claire was a good correspondent, her letters full of details. On the weekends, Claire and her new friends would go to the White City Amusement Park, or they would hop the “L” and take it into the city. Or they would cram into a convertible owned by the brother of one of the other residents and head off to Clarendon or Wilson Avenue Beach. Each day brought new adventures, which Claire recounted with relish.
    After a few weeks, references to “Frank” began to appear in the pages of Claire’s letters. Claire was