The Three Hundred Dollar Heir

1 Of the three Harrington children, I was the one they kept in the dark. My older sister, Victoria, was groomed from private school to the boardroom, perpetually running the family conglomerate. Tristan, the polished boy they had adopted before they ever knew I was alive, spent his evenings at charity galas and country clubs, smiling for photographers. Then there was me. The biological heir they had finally tracked down after twenty years in the Appalachian backwoods, rough-edged and smelling of damp cedar. When my grandfather suffered a catastrophic stroke and lost the use of his body, my parents didn’t hire a private clinic. They shipped me out to the decaying family estate in the upstate hills to take care of him. At the end of my first month there, the estate manager, Mercer, handed me my care allowance: three hundred dollars. I didn’t think anything of it. Victoria earned millions for the company. Tristan knew how to make my parents laugh until their eyes crinkled. All I knew was how to turn soil and keep laying hens. To me, three hundred dollars in cash was more than my adoptive father and I used to make digging roots across an entire winter. If three hundred was all they sent, then three hundred was how we would survive. I couldn’t afford the organic produce Mercer suggested, so I broke the sod in the overgrown courtyard with an old spade, planting collards, pole beans, and beefsteak tomatoes. I couldn’t afford round-the-clock nursing aides, so I turned Grandfather every two hours myself, wiped him down with warm washcloths, and set my alarm for the middle of the night to measure out his blood pressure drops. When his medical oxygen concentrator began sputtering—wheezing like an old boiler on its last legs—I knew I had to replace it. During the day, between lifting him and cleaning him, I scoured the wooded ridges for wild Solomon’s seal and ginseng. At night, under a single bare bulb, I split white ash splints and wove heavy utility baskets for the farmers down in the valley. It took me nine months of scraped knuckles and burning eyes to scrape together eighteen thousand dollars. The day the freight company finally backed into the gravel driveway to deliver the clinical-grade oxygen unit, my parents arrived. They had brought Victoria and Tristan along to see Grandfather. Victoria swept in with a team of top neuro-rehabilitation specialists from Boston, their leather cases filled with diagnostic monitors. Tristan followed behind her, cradling an antique rosewood box containing a certified, century-old wild mountain ginseng root he claimed to have won at auction for twelve million dollars. And there I stood. Streaked with gray garden dirt, clutching a wire basket of wild bitter greens in one hand and the heavy cardboard carton of an eighteen-thousand-dollar domestic oxygen machine in the other. Tristan glanced at the box in my arms, his eyebrows arching in delicate, theatrical pity. "The family transfers three million dollars a month into the care fund, Silas," he murmured, his voice pitched just loud enough for everyone to hear. "And you went and bought Grandfather some bargain-bin scrap metal?" Victoria’s expression hardened instantly into stone. She stepped toward me, her voice cutting through the damp afternoon chill. "Twenty-seven million dollars over nine months, Silas. Where the hell did you put Grandfather’s money?" I swallowed dryly, my throat clicking. I wiped the dust from my brow with the back of a calloused hand. Where I come from, you don't pad a ledger. A dollar earned is a dollar accounted for, and you never take credit for what isn't yours. The trouble was, I had never so much as smelled that kind of money. So who had been getting fat off twenty-seven million dollars? "Tristan went to extraordinary lengths for this," my mother’s voice had chimed on the family group chat just that morning, accompanied by a photo of the gilded display case. "Twelve million at auction, but when it comes to his grandfather’s recovery, he never hesitates." A row of heart emojis had followed. Then came a voice note from Tristan, warm and smooth as polished maple: "Nothing matters more than Grandpa’s health. Isn't Victoria bringing a surprise too?" Victoria had replied with brisk efficiency: "Consulted the leading neuro-rehab team out of Mass General. Bringing them upstate today for a full baseline workup." My father had added an unusually soft note: "You two make your mother and me proud. A true family." I had been sitting in the dim, stale bedroom at the back of the manor when those messages lit up my cracked screen, holding a curved upholstery needle in one hand and a spool of coarse nylon thread in the other. In the photograph, the dried root sat on a bed of gold silk, accompanied by an embossed certificate from an international auction house. I didn’t know much about certificates, but looking at the spindly, shriveled thing on the screen, I thought it looked scrawnier than the wild parsnips I pulled behind the barn. "You see that, boy?" Mercer had crept up behind me, tapping his manicured index finger against the glass of my phone. "Miss Victoria brings top-flight specialists. Master Tristan drops eight figures on ancient medicine. Both of them carrying the Harrington name like royalty. And you? His own blood? What have you got to show for yourself?" I had lowered the phone quickly, flipping the quilted cotton pad on my lap so he wouldn’t see the frayed seam I was reinforcing. "I'm working on it," I had muttered. Mercer had let out a thin, wet sneer. "Of course you are. Twenty years living like an animal in a hollow, what else could you know besides shoveling manure? Just make sure you don't drag a sack of sweet potatoes into the drawing room and call it a grandson's devotion." The heat had crawled up the back of my neck, but I hadn’t spoken back. He wasn't entirely wrong. In the polished halls of the Harrington world, I was an embarrassment. Victoria had a master’s from Columbia and moved through boardrooms like a blade. Tristan was charming, spoke three languages, and fenced; whenever my parents paraded him through high-society galas, people clucked over what a thoroughbred he was. Then they had retrieved me. At my first formal family dinner in their city townhouse, I hadn’t known which fork was for salad and had used the soup spoon to scoop dessert. My mother hadn’t yelled; she had simply ordered me to stay on the third floor for the next three days so the domestic staff wouldn’t witness her shame. When Grandfather took his turn for the worse, they didn't consult me. A town car simply pulled up, packed my two duffel bags, and dropped me off at this drafty, forgotten estate thirty miles outside the city. The first week here, Mercer had handed me three crisp hundred-dollar bills. "The care stipend," he’d said dismissively. I had stayed awake half the night, staring at those bills. Back in the hollow, Hank—the man who raised me—and I had dug bloodroot and ginseng through frozen mud for weeks just to clear three hundred dollars. To have that handed to me for thirty days of eldercare felt generous. When the specialized imported baby spinach Mercer ordered for Grandfather’s purees proved too costly, I hauled manure and seeded my own beds. When we couldn't hire physical therapists, I learned the stretches myself, kneading Grandfather’s stiffened calves every morning and evening. When the medical underpads ran out, I took shears to the old percale sheets in the linen closets, boiled them in a ten-gallon washpot over an open fire behind the shed, and dried them in the sun until they were bleached white and sterile. Grandfather couldn't speak, but his eyes followed me everywhere. Whenever I wiped his forehead with a damp rag, his fingers would twitch against the wool blanket. I would lean down, putting my ear close to his mouth. "Thirsty, Grandpa?" He would blink once. Slowly, carefully, I’d prop his neck up with my forearm and hold an old enamel mug of lukewarm boiled water to his dry lips, letting him take tiny, measured sips. One afternoon, Mercer had leaned against the doorframe, chewing on an expensive toothpick. "The patriarch of Harrington Enterprises drinking out of a chipped tin cup," Mercer had sneered. "He used to have six-stage reverse-osmosis water at a controlled seventy degrees. You treat him like a stray hound." I had looked down at the mug. The blue enamel was chipped near the handle, but I had boiled it clean with baking soda until it gleamed. "The filtration dispenser in the pantry burned out," I’d said quietly. "The local plumber wanted four hundred and twenty dollars for a new heating core. I had to choose between that and his heart medication this week." Mercer’s eyes had narrowed. "The family provides. Stop playing the pauper. You're just incompetent." Before I could answer, the bedside oxygen concentrator had let out a violent, mechanical shriek. Grandfather’s frame arched off the mattress. His chest heaved, and within seconds, his fingernails and lips began turning a terrifying, mottled plum. "Grandpa!" I dropped the mug. The water spilled across the pine floorboards as I lunged for the flow meter. The little plastic bead was jammed hard against the bottom peg. Zero liters. Sweat poured into my eyes. I yanked the nasal cannula clear, checked the tubing for kinks, and slammed my open palm against the metal casing the way an old appliance repairman in town had shown me once. The compressor sputtered, coughed, and finally wheezed back to life, hissing a faint stream of air. I fell to my knees beside the bed, clutching Grandfather’s paper-thin hand, my heart hammering against my ribs until dusk settled over the room. The repair technician didn't arrive until after dark. He pulled off the back panel, took one look at the scorched wiring harness, and shook his head. "Machine’s fifteen years old, son. The compressor valves are shot. I can patch the relay, but it’s living on borrowed time. You need a modern continuous-flow unit, yesterday." I had wiped my wet palms on my jeans. "How much for a reliable one? Something that won't quit in the middle of the night?" "A solid clinical-grade workhorse? About eighteen thousand dollars." Eighteen thousand. The number echoed in my head like a stone dropped down a dry well. At three hundred dollars a month, if I didn't spend a single cent on food, kerosene, or soap, it would take me five years. Outside in the hall, Mercer’s voice had barked: "Silas! What are you doing in there? Master Tristan wants fresh pasture-raised chicken broth sent to his apartment tomorrow morning. Go catch that fat black hen in the coop, slaughter it, and have it simmering before midnight." That hen was my best layer. I had been saving her to make broth for Grandfather when the winter chills hit. I had looked at Grandfather’s sunken cheeks, swallowed the knot in my throat, and said, "Coming." Late that night, with the broth bubbling on the stove, I sat beside Grandfather’s bed, holding a spare rubber oxygen bladder in my lap. Every time the machine stuttered, my stomach lurched. As the gray dawn broke, I rubbed the old man's cold, spotted knuckles and made up my mind. Eighteen thousand was just a number. If I had to strip the woods bare and weave until my fingers bled, I would get him that machine. Every morning, I woke at four to stoke the wood stove and boil water. I bathed Grandfather, rolled him to check for pressure sores, massaged his spine, and stretched his contracted knees. By the time I stripped the sheets and hung them out, it would be ten o’clock. One morning, as I choked down a dry biscuit left over from the day before, Mercer tossed a heavy brass ring of keys onto the kitchen table. "Hose out the chicken run. Chop the cord of ash wood by the cellar. And the conservatory glass has mildew—scrub every pane before sunset." I paused. "Mercer, I need to go up the mountain this afternoon." He didn't even look up from his tablet. "What for?" "To dig wild roots. Grandfather’s oxygen is failing. I need to make up the eighteen thousand." Mercer let out a short, barking laugh. "You think the Harringtons need a backwoods ditch-digger to buy medical supplies? The family feeds you to stay put, not to wander off playing woodsman." I gripped the hem of my shirt. "I’ll finish every chore on your list first. But I’m going." Before he could curse me, Grandfather's weak knuckles banged hard against the steel bedrail from the next room—once, twice. Mercer grimaced at the noise and walked out. I worked like a man possessed until noon, blistering my palms on the axe handle, and finally strapped my old ash-splint pack basket onto my shoulders and headed up the ridge. The mountain trails were slick with autumn rain. Moss coated the shale ledges. I was moving too fast, desperate to reach a stand of Solomon’s seal I had spotted weeks ago, when my right boot slipped on wet slate. I tumbled twenty feet down a rocky wash, slamming into the trunk of a fallen hemlock. The jagged rock tore open my palm, and my left ankle flared with sharp, sickening heat. For several minutes, I lay in the wet leaves, staring up through the canopy until the black spots faded from my vision. When I finally dragged myself up, using a branch as a crutch, I saw the patch. A lush, thick terrace of wild root crowns, thriving in the dark loam. I couldn’t go back empty-handed. I tied my bleeding palm with a strip torn from my flannel shirt and dug until my knuckles hit bedrock. By the time I limped into the valley town with forty pounds of damp roots on my back, the streetlamps were flickering on. The proprietor of the local apothecary and natural goods shop weighed the harvest, sorted the crowns, and handed me four hundred and sixty dollars in worn tens and twenties. I counted it three times. Eighteen thousand was a mountain away. But four hundred and sixty was real. Every dollar brought the machine closer. My stomach gave an empty, painful cramp. Down the street, the bell of a small diner chimed as someone opened the door, releasing the rich, buttery scent of roasted beef and fresh rolls. I walked up to the side window. "How much for the beef brisket sandwich?" "Twelve bucks, kid." I reached into my pocket, felt the four hundred and sixty meant for Grandfather's lungs, and drew my hand back. I fished out a single crumpled one-dollar bill from my watch pocket. "Just a plain dinner roll, please. The day-old one." I sat down on the curb around the corner, chewing the dry, hard bread and washing it down with cold tap water from an outdoor spigot. A sleek black Mercedes pulled up across the street, idling in front of a private, members-only cigar lounge. The door opened. My mother stepped out, wrapped in a cream cashmere coat that looked softer than swan’s down. Tristan was at her side, wearing a tailored wool blazer, chatting easily while two lounge attendants loaded monogrammed shopping bags into the trunk. My breath caught. I instinctively ducked my head, hoping the shadows would hide me. But Tristan’s eyes, sharp and roving, caught the movement. "Silas?" He crossed the street with brisk, elegant strides, looking down at my mud-caked boots, the torn flannel bandage on my hand, and the stale bread crust in my fingers. "What on earth are you doing sitting in the dirt like a vagrant?" My mother turned. The moment her gaze landed on me, her mouth pinched into a severe, disgusted line. "Silas," she said, her voice dropping into that chilling, tight register she used when a servant spilled wine. "What kind of scene are you trying to cause now?" I scrambled to my feet, my swollen ankle throbbing. "Mother, I'm not causing a scene. I was selling wild herbs in town." Tristan’s gaze dropped to the canvas pouch bulging beneath my belt. Without warning, he reached out and snatched it. The drawstring snapped, and the wad of small bills scattered across the damp sidewalk. "Selling herbs?" Tristan said, his voice laced with mock concern. "Silas, everything on the estate grounds belongs to the Harrington trust. You can't just strip the property and hawk it on street corners." I dropped to my knees, frantically gathering the bills before the wind could blow them into the gutter. "It wasn't from the grounds! It was wild root from the state ridge. I need it for Grandfather's oxygen—" Tristan let out a quiet, performative sigh. "If you need pocket money, Silas, you can just ask. You don't have to use Grandpa's illness as an excuse to play the martyr. The family provides an enormous budget. When you sit on a curb begging like this, people think our parents don't feed their own blood." A pair of patrons exiting the cigar lounge paused, whispering to each other as they took in the spectacle. Humiliation flashed across my mother’s face. She stepped forward, her leather-gloved hand lashing out to knock the remaining roots from my arm. The pale, knobby crowns tumbled across the concrete; two of them rolled straight into an open storm drain. "Look at you!" she hissed under her breath. "You drag our name through the gutter every time you open your mouth. From this moment on, you do not leave that estate without my express permission. Do you understand me?" I ignored the sharp throb in my ankle and stretched out over the curb, desperate to fish the clean roots out of the muck. A security guard from the lounge stepped forward, deliberately kicking my pack basket out of the walkway. Tristan leaned down, his voice dropping so low only I could hear it. "You take in all that cash every month, brother. Why are you still so greedy?" I stared at him, bewildered. He had to mean the three hundred dollars. To someone like him, three hundred was pocket change for valet tips, but to me, it was real money. Still, between Grandfather's cardiac drops and bed liners, it disappeared in a week. I couldn't fight them. I simply bowed my head. "I understand." When I limped back through the iron gates of the manor, Mercer was waiting on the stone portico. He slapped three fifty-dollar bills onto the hall table, then immediately scooped one back into his pocket. "Unexcused absence," Mercer said smoothly. "Leaving the patient unattended for five hours. Half your monthly allowance is forfeit." The remaining two bills lay there. I reached out, my fingers trembling, and picked them up. Under the hall chandelier, the texture of the top bill felt slick, wrong. I held it up to the light. The ink was blurred, the watermark missing. It was a clumsy, counterfeit fifty. Fifty real dollars. That was all that was left. It wouldn't even cover half a bottle of Grandfather’s blood thinners. I didn't argue. Mercer controlled the pantry, the heating oil, the generator. If I crossed him, Grandfather would be the one freezing in the dark. I went into the bedroom, watched the ancient oxygen machine rattle against the floorboards, and pulled out my phone. For the first time since they sent me away, I texted my mother. Mother, Grandfather’s oxygen machine is failing. The valves are shot. Could you advance me eighteen thousand dollars? I will pay you back in foraged herbs and woven baskets. Every cent. Two hours passed. Nothing. I texted my father. His reply arrived four minutes later: The family account funds the estate monthly. Do not bother me with household trivia during business hours. I stared at the screen, a hot prickle of shame behind my eyes. He ran a multi-billion-dollar empire. An appliance repair must have seemed like a speck of dust to him. I opened Victoria’s contact. Her location status read Zurich. I typed out a careful plea. The message sat there, delivered, unread. Finally, with nowhere else to turn, I messaged Tristan. Within thirty seconds, an image popped up: the rosewood box containing the gnarled ginseng root. Just cleared customs, Tristan wrote. Silas, if you really care about Grandpa, spend less time scheming for money and more time keeping him clean. Stop using his condition to solicit funds. I'm not scheming, I typed back, my thumbs shaking. The compressor is smoking. It's going to stop. A red exclamation point appeared beside my text. He had blocked me. I set the phone on the nightstand, my chest hollow with self-blame. It was my fault. They had trusted me to keep the old man alive, and I couldn't even secure the air he breathed. After that night, Mercer locked the outer gate. The two maids who had been assigned to the estate quickly figured out that I carried no authority. When I asked them to help me lift Grandfather to prevent bedsores, they sat in the scullery scrolling through TikTok. When I asked them to run the wash, they dumped the gray water into the dirt yard, nearly drowning my fledgling tomato plants. Worse, Mercer began backing his truck up to the barn twice a week, loading crates of my farm-fresh eggs, dried herbs, and butchered chickens, claiming "operational overhead" required liquidating surplus assets. When I stood in front of his bumper to stop him, he shoved me hard into the gravel. "You think you're the master here?" he spat, leaning over me. "Everything on this dirt belongs to the Harrington estate. Say one word to your father, and I'll tell him you've been stealing livestock to sell to locals." I sat in the gravel, nursing a raw elbow, watching his taillights disappear down the winding drive. My eyes drifted to the river cane and white ash saplings crowding the estate’s western fence line. Hank had taught me to split ash when I was eight years old. A single pack basket wouldn't bring much. But ten? A hundred? That night, under a sliver of moon, I felled two young ash trees with a hand saw and dragged them to the tool shed. During the day, I was a nurse, a gardener, a cook. At night, by the amber glow of a forty-watt bulb, I pounded the logs with a wooden mallet until the annual rings separated into clean, satin-smooth ribbons of wood. When the splints sliced into my thumbs, I bound them with electrical tape. When exhaustion pressed behind my eyes like lead weights, I thrust my face into a bucket of well water. A produce vendor in the valley, seeing the tight, indestructible weave of my hampers, began taking orders for me. I traded through him: farm eggs I hid from Mercer, bundles of dried mountain tea, and dozens of heavy-duty gathering baskets. Ten dollars. Fifty dollars. A hundred dollars. The rusted green tackle box beneath my floorboards grew heavy. Spring melted into summer. The tomatoes ripened into heavy, scarlet globes. When the bedroom's oscillating fan burned out during a July heatwave, I sat by Grandfather’s bed with a cardboard flat, fanning him by hand until the gray dawn cooled the room. By late October, when the oak leaves turned the color of dried blood, I locked the bedroom door, pulled up the floorboard, and dumped the tackle box onto the bed. Eighteen thousand dollars. In ones, fives, tens, and twenties. My hands shook so hard I had to count the stacks three times before I called the medical supply distributor in Albany. The morning the delivery truck arrived, Mercer shoved open the front door without knocking. "Clean yourself up," he said, smoothing his silk tie. "Mr. and Mrs. Harrington, Miss Victoria, and Master Tristan are on their way up the mountain." A surge of genuine, naive warmth hit my chest. They hadn't seen Grandfather in nearly a year. I ran down to the garden, dug a basket of crisp late-season carrots, pulled fresh winter squash, and grabbed the plump stewing hen I had managed to hide in the old smokehouse. If they were coming, I would cook them a real meal. They would see how clean the house was. They would see how clear Grandfather's eyes were. Grandpa, I thought as I scrubbed the sink, they’re coming to see you. The heavy steel box containing the oxygen concentrator had just been wheeled onto the front flagstones when the convoy of luxury SUVs pulled through the gates. Victoria was out first, sharp in a charcoal pantsuit, followed by a half-dozen clinicians in pristine white coats unloading chrome-plated diagnostic rigs. My father stepped out next, nodding with stern satisfaction. "A man of your grandfather’s stature requires institutional-grade oversight." My mother smiled, adjusting the collar of her cashmere wrap. "Victoria rescheduled three corporate mergers to coordinate this medical delegation. That is what family duty looks like." Victoria gave a brief, dismissive nod. "It’s simply what is required." Tristan stepped forward, carrying the velvet-lined rosewood box with both hands. He lifted the lid, revealing the twisted, dried ginseng root and its polished brass plaque. "Grandfather," Tristan said toward the open veranda, though the old man was nowhere in sight, "twelve million dollars is a small price to pay for your vitality." My mother touched Tristan’s arm affectionately. "Always so thoughtful, Tristan. Unlike some people who sit by a bedside all year and produce nothing." I shrank back against the porch rail, clutching my basket of dirt-streaked carrots. Tristan spotted me, his smile widening into something bright and cruel. "Silas! Don't lurk in the corner. We all brought offerings for Grandfather's care. What did you prepare?" I looked at the Boston specialists, then at the twelve-million-dollar antique root. The carrots in my hand felt childish, pathetic. But behind me sat the heavy wooden crate. Eighteen thousand dollars of my blood, bone, and sleepless nights. I set the vegetables down and pointed to the pallet. "The old pump gave out. I bought Grandfather a new clinical concentrator." Tristan walked over, inspected the shipping label, and let out an amused hum. "Domestic manufacture? A standard regional model? I think these run about... what, eighteen grand online?" The courtyard went dead silent. My mother’s face twisted into instant fury. "You bought your grandfather an eighteen-thousand-dollar machine?" Panic flared in my chest. "It’s hospital-grade! The Albany technician swore by the compression seals—" "Eighteen thousand?" My father’s voice boomed with disgust. "Do you think the Harrington family is on food stamps?" Mercer stepped smoothly out from behind the SUVs, his face solemn, his hands folded. "Sir, Madam, I’ve held my tongue for months out of respect for the family," Mercer said, his voice dripping with sorrowful regret. "Master Silas has been shockingly penurious. He refuses to use commercial disposables, boiling rags for the master instead. He feeds him scraps from the dirt yard and turned away the home-care aides I tried to hire." I whipped around, staring at him. "That’s a lie! You never hired an aide! I boiled those sheets because we didn't have money for pads!" Mercer sighed, wiping a phantom tear from his eye. "Master Silas, I know you resent my presence, but gambling with your grandfather's life to pinch pennies is unconscionable. I begged you not to hoard the medical allocation." My mother lunged toward me, her finger trembling an inch from my nose. "What kind of monster are you? Your grandfather was the only one who advocated for bringing you out of those woods, and this is how you treat him?" "I didn't hoard anything!" The words tore out of my throat, hot and desperate. "Look at him! He doesn't have a single bedsore! I turn him every two hours! The food is clean! I bought the machine with my own hands!" Tristan gently placed a hand on my mother’s shaking shoulder. "Mother, don't upset yourself. Silas grew up rough. It’s natural for him to hoard resources. After all, he still has that hillbilly foster father back in the hollow to support." "Hank doesn't take my money!" I cried. "Hank works his own land!" Tristan looked at me with sorrowful condescension. "Silas, just admit it. What you do with your personal money is your business. But stealing from an old man’s medical lifeline to line your backwoods family’s pockets? That is beyond depraved." Victoria had heard enough. Her eyes were arctic as she walked up to the crate, checked the invoice stapled to the side, and then turned her gaze directly upon me. "How much did this cost?" she asked, her voice dangerously quiet. "Eighteen thousand." "Who paid for it?" "I did. Every dollar." Victoria’s jaw clenched. When she spoke, every syllable fell like an iron weight. "The corporate treasury transfers 3,000,000 a month into this estate's medical account. Over nine months, that is two point seven million dollars." She stepped into my space, towering over me. "Tell me, Silas. Where is the rest of the twenty-seven million?" Twenty-seven million? The number hit me like a physical blow. The air rushed out of my lungs. I had nearly killed myself over eighteen thousand dollars across nine months; I couldn't even fathom what twenty-seven million looked like. My father slammed his fist against the hood of the Mercedes. "Hand over your banking credentials. Now!" My mother was hyperventilating, pressing a hand to her throat. "Look at him! Dressing like a beggar, living in filth, pretending to be a victim while he bleeds this family dry!" Tristan stepped forward, eyes soft with pity. "Silas, just tell them where the offshore account is. If you confess now, Father might not involve the authorities." Mercer reached into his suit jacket, pulling out his phone. "Mr. Harrington, should I call the state police? An embezzlement of this scale cannot be swept under the rug." They closed in on me, their voices overlapping, striking me from every side. Three hundred thousand a month? Twenty-seven million dollars? What did any of that have to do with me? My hands trembling violently, I dug into the pocket of my grease-stained jeans and pulled out my battered phone. The screen was spiderwebbed with cracks, the plastic casing chipped. It took three hard presses of my thumb for the display to flicker to life. I opened the banking app and scrolled back through nine months of automated SMS deposit alerts. Three hundred. Three hundred. Three hundred. I held the cracked screen out toward Victoria, my voice cracking in the quiet afternoon air. "I never saw that money," I whispered. "I've been living on three hundred dollars a month."