He dumped the contents onto the table. A yellowed envelope slipped from between two tax folders, its corner torn.
Noah pulled out a single slip of paper from the State Bank of Indiana. It was a savings account statement from twelve years ago, when we were eleven.
“Look at the balance,” I said, pointing to the bottom line.
Noah stared at the page, his thumb resting on the border. “It says zero.”
“Josh had five thousand dollars in his personal savings the year before,” I said. “Where did it go?”
“I saw the zero on that paper, Eric, and it does not make sense,” Noah said, his voice dropping.
He set the slip of paper down next to the fountain pen I had placed on the table.
“We need to ask Ruth,” Noah said. “She has the ledger from those years.”
Elm Lane was dark, the streetlamps casting long orange shadows through the bare branches of the maples. Grandma Ruth’s cottage sat behind a low boxwood hedge, the windows dark except for a single lamp in the back.
