“Obviously,” I said.
We stood awkwardly for a moment, then I went to bed.
The next morning, after Dad left for the junkyard, I told Mother one
of my fake stories about BYU needing her tax returns. She knew I was
lying—I could tell because when Dad came in unexpectedly and asked
why she was copying the returns, she said the duplicates were for her
records.
I took the copies and returned to BYU. Shawn and I exchanged no
words before I left. He never asked why I’d been sneaking into my own
house at three in the morning, and I never asked who he’d been
waiting for, sitting up in the middle of the night, with a loaded pistol.
—THE FORMS SAT ON my desk for a week before Robin walked with me to
the post office and watched me hand them to the postal worker. It
didn’t take long, a week, maybe two. I was cleaning houses in Draper
when the mail came, so Robin left the letter on my bed with a note that
I was a Commie now.
I tore open the envelope and a check fell onto my bed. For four
thousand dollars. I felt greedy, then afraid of my greed. There was a
contact number. I dialed it.
“There’s a problem,” I told the woman who answered. “The check is
for four thousand dollars, but I only need fourteen hundred.”
The line was silent.
“Hello? Hello?”
“Let me get this straight,” the woman said. “You’re saying the check
is for too much money? What do you want me to do?”
“If I send it back, could you send me another one? I only need
fourteen hundred. For a root canal.”
“Look, honey,” she said. “You get that much because that’s how
much you get. Cash it or don’t, it’s up to you.”
I had the root canal. I bought my textbooks, paid rent, and had
money left over. The bishop said I should treat myself to something,
but I said I couldn’t, I had to save the money. He told me I could afford
to spend some. “Remember,” he said, “you can apply for the same