The Bank Copies Gave My Payments Four Dates And Numbers

I put the surrender notice on my kitchen table beside four rent receipts.

The receipts were narrow white slips. Cecil's pen had pressed hard enough to leave grooves in them.

April, number 613. May, 629. June, 646. July, 662.

Each said $420. Each carried his initials.

I turned one toward the lamp. There was the little hook in his C, the same hook on Saturday's notice.

My daughter, Emma, called while I was making copies on the printer I used for class handouts.

“How was the market?”

“I lost a sale.”

“Just one?”

I told her.

She went quiet, then said, “Want me to come up?”

“Not to fight him.”

“I meant to sit with you.”

“Sunday supper, then.”

I copied every slip twice. The originals went into a clear sleeve. I wrote the date on an envelope and put Cecil's demand inside it.

Then I called Ramona.

“Did you approve a demand for original receipts?” I asked.

“No.”

“Did the board approve evictions?”

“Not at our last meeting.”

I heard a chair scrape.

“Lydia, tell me exactly what happened.”

I did, including the tape measure.

“Don't hand over your originals,” she said. “I'll meet you at the workshop Monday after you go to the bank.”

“You remember which book?”

“I signed the inventory.”

Her voice stayed gentle. She asked me to bring a pencil, not a pen, for pointing to entries.

On Sunday, Emma brought chicken and washed the supper dishes. I ate more than I expected to.

“A receipt doesn't stop somebody from making a scene,” I told her.

“It might stop him from keeping what he gets out of it.”

That was enough comfort for one evening.

After she left, I worked a row around a small market basket. My hands kept stopping at the same place. I could hear Cecil saying that I took money from my neighbors.

I had sold beside those people for eleven years. We watched each other's tables during lunch. Ben had fixed the loose rung on my chair without charging me.

I set the basket aside. I wanted to defend my name, but I also wanted to understand why three careful vendors had suddenly become debtors on the same morning.

At the bank Monday morning, I asked for copies of four paid money orders. I had kept the purchase stubs, including their long serial numbers.

The clerk explained the request and its fee. I paid $20 for the four items and asked for a receipt for that, too.

“Will these prove my rent was received?” I asked.

“They'll show the issued items and that they were paid,” she said. “You'll still want whatever records show why you gave them.”

I liked that answer. She had not promised more than the paper could say.

The bank supplied images from its records. The copies showed four $420 orders payable to Redbud Bend Market Cooperative. Their purchase dates matched the dates I had gone straight from the bank to the market office.

The serial numbers ended in 218, 237, 254, and 278.

I wrote those last digits on the outside of my folder so I could find the right pages quickly. I left the bank's pages clean.

At eight forty-five, Cecil stood in the market doorway with a cardboard box.

“Receipts,” he said, tapping its rim.

“I brought copies for review.”

“I said originals.”

“Ramona asked to review them with me.”

He glanced at her car by the gravel edge.

“She doesn't run daily collections.”

“She is the treasurer.”

“And you're a basket seller.”

“Yes.”

I walked past the box.

Ramona waited in the workshop, wearing reading glasses on a cord. Beside her sat board chair Elaine Porter and a blank inventory sheet.

“Why is she here?” Cecil asked from the doorway.

“To witness the records review,” Ramona said.

He looked at the steel cabinet.

“Those are damaged books.”

“Some covers were damaged,” I said.

I set down the July inventory. Ramona compared its cabinet number with the number on the door. Elaine wrote down the time.

Then I took the key from my ring.

Cecil laughed once.

“You really think an old book beats current accounts?”

I opened the cabinet.

“You thought I only held a cash tin,” I said. “The board also put me in charge of keeping these.”

Inside were dry folders, two older books, and the bound duplicate book numbered 601 through 680. A pale tide mark ran along its cloth spine.

I set it on the cleared table. Ramona checked the stitched binding before she opened it.

Receipt 613 remained in place, its carbon writing faint but whole.

She set my white original beside it. Then she placed the bank copy below both.

“Four hundred twenty dollars,” she read. “Money order ending 218. Rent, April. Lydia Fields.”

Cecil reached toward the book. Elaine slid her chair closer.

Ramona turned to the next marked page, and a loose typed sheet slipped from inside the back cover.