For twenty-two years, a white envelope from First Continental Rural Bank had arrived in his mailbox during the last week of every month, and for twenty-two years Raymond had known its feel before he ever opened it. Thin paper. One folded statement. Sometimes an insert about crop insurance or a holiday closing or some new account option he never intended to use. He would carry it back up the gravel drive, set it beside the chipped ceramic butter dish on the kitchen table, pour coffee if it was morning or iced tea if it was afternoon, slit the envelope with the same pocketknife his father had carried, and read every line.
Most people did not read statements like that. Raymond knew that. His late wife, Ellen, used to tease him about it.
“You think those numbers are going to confess something if you stare long enough?”
Raymond would smile without looking up. “Numbers always confess. People are the ones who lie.”
She would shake her head, kiss the top of his thinning hair, and leave him to his columns and balances and penciled checkmarks.
Now Ellen had been gone four years, the kitchen table had only one chair pulled out from it most mornings, and the envelope in Raymond’s hand felt wrong.
