Were you aware James said from my side of the table that your mother had played the same numbers for 11 years? Silence. Roland’s birthday. I said quietly. I hadn’t planned to speak, but I did. My birthday, 1968, the year Roland and I were married. I’ve played those numbers every week since the year after he died.
I looked at Derek. You knew those numbers, I said. You grew up in this house. You knew exactly whose ticket that was. He said nothing. His face was a complicated country I no longer had a map to. Cynthia leaned forward suddenly. This is ridiculous,’ she said, her voice cracking with something that might have been desperation or fury or both.
‘She’s an old woman who lost a piece of paper, and now she wants to take what we found.’ ‘Cynthia,’ Garland said sharply. ‘No, they’re acting like we’re criminals. We found it. We Mrs. Zealous, Barbara Ye said, looking at Cynthia with the patience of someone who has seen this precise moment many times before.