It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. Far from it. Five months ago, when she’d told him she was pregnant with his baby, their little girl, he came here, straight to the bank, to add her name to his account, granting her full access. Not enough in there for a diamond ring or a wedding, but he could offer his trust and transparency and whatever his biweekly paychecks permitted, at least before the collectors finished bulldozing the nest egg he’d been assembling over the last couple years. Soon enough, all that would be left were twigs. Debris. Spittle. Not even that come this time next year, if he were to actually keep up with the monthly sums they were demanding. It was imaginary money. Digits on screens, ink on paper. And so that was precisely why he now decided not to deposit the life insurance check, but instead cash it. Not because he didn’t trust her. No. It was just that he needed to hold it, needed to feel the dollar-cent weight of Papa in cold, hard cash before it was all gone, along with everything else the man had spent his life working for.

The bank teller had that impostor polish of a poor kid trying not to look poor. The type who’d been duped into believing good behavior and strong grades might get him a rung higher on the ladder, maybe even transport him to either coast someday, to anywhere other than the scorched quicksand of these plains he’d been so unjustly born into. The tilt of his pimpled chin and suspicious squint said it all. He really believed his clearance-rack tie and gelled hair made him better than Henry.

The teller made neat sprouts of the cash, hundred-dollar bills grouped in bushels of ten across the countertop. As he counted, his breath escaped in quick gasps, as if he were alone and talking himself out of a bad decision. Henry hated how willfully blasé the teller’s expression was, as bored and aloof as the kid always seemed whenever Henry stopped by to deposit a paycheck, each one worth less than a tenth of the cash now getting stuffed into an envelope. The kid was acting as if he handled this amount of money on a regular basis with the impenetrable pomp of some high-roller, Monte Carlo casino dealer. The only hint of strain came when the punk struggled to wedge the four pennies into the bulging packet.

Henry paused to weigh the envelope in an upturned palm. Thought of the white cylinder holding whatever was left of Papa. Probably didn’t weigh much more than this cash. Hard to know for sure, because a terrifying force seemed to be crushing down on it, down on him. He mumbled something.

“What was that, Mr.”—the teller glanced at the computer for a surname, then went with—“sir?”