The morning we were supposed to go buy it, Lily wouldn’t even pick up the keys.
Then she told me every dollar was gone.
When she finally explained where the money had gone, I honestly couldn’t decide which part shocked me more.
That Saturday morning, I placed an old metal keychain beside my coffee mug.
It made a soft clink against the ceramic.
Lily had no idea I had found it.
The keychain had belonged to Michael, her father.
For four years after his death, it had been buried in the back of our junk drawer beneath dead batteries, old takeout menus, and several pens that no longer worked.
Attached to the ring was a small rectangular metal tag.
One word was stamped across it.
HOME.
Michael had carried it everywhere until the day he died.
That morning, I had cleaned it carefully with a dish towel.
The ring was empty.
But if everything went according to plan, by lunchtime Lily’s first car key would be hanging from it.
I heard her bedroom door open upstairs.
“Ready?” I called.
No response.
I smiled and jingled the keychain.
“Lily, if you make us late, somebody else is going to buy that car.”
A few seconds later, her voice came from the hallway.
“Mom?”
Something about the way she said it made me lower my hand.
She walked into the kitchen wearing jeans and the old T-shirt from the café where she worked.
Her hair wasn’t brushed.
She wasn’t carrying her purse.
And she didn’t even look at the car listing I had printed and left on the table.
She sat across from me.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
Lily rubbed her thumb along the edge of the table.
“We can’t go.”
At first, I assumed the seller had canceled.
“What happened?”
She swallowed.
“I don’t have the money anymore.”
For several seconds, I stared at her.
“What money?”
She finally looked up.
“My car money.”
I laughed once because what she had said simply didn’t make sense.
“You have four thousand eighty-six dollars.”
