I was not innocent.
I had trusted a man because it was easier than looking.
That was my sin, and I paid for it the only way I knew how.
Within a month, I had opened an account at the credit union, and I refunded all forty-one cardholders, every dollar of the $186,400, out of my own savings, before any insurance company had finished its first form.
I did not send a check.
I went to each of them in person.
I brought soup.
Mrs. Dena Lathrop opened her door in a cardigan with her cane in her hand.
I stood on her porch with the thermos, and I said what I had practiced in the car.
“Mrs. Lathrop, it wasn’t you.”
“It was never you.”
“You didn’t forget anything.”
“You didn’t lose your mind.”
“You were r*bbed in my restaurant, and I’m sorry.”
She looked at me for a very long time.
