The young teller smiled kindly.
“I’d like to withdraw the balance,” I told her. “It should be two thousand dollars. I need it for medical expenses.”
She typed for a moment, then asked for my ID. When she looked at the screen again, her smile faded.
“Is there a problem?” I asked. “Did he cancel it?”
“No, ma’am,” she said softly. “But I need my branch manager.”
A few minutes later, Mr. Cooper came out holding a sealed envelope with Walter’s handwriting on the front.
“Walter left instructions,” he said. “We were supposed to give you this the first time you used the card.”
“He told me it was emergency money.”
“It was,” Mr. Cooper said. “At first.”
Then he showed me the balance.
$48,216.73.
I sat down hard.
“That isn’t mine.”
“It is,” he said. “Walter’s pension has been depositing money into this account every month for five years.”
