I smiled at him across the table, feeling a quiet, steady strength rise up in my chest. I reached into my purse, pulled out a heavy, sparkling gold coin from 1924, and set it gently on the laminate table right next to his coffee cup.

Michael’s face went completely white. He stared at the coin, his fork stopping halfway to his mouth. The smug grin vanished from his face so fast it was almost comical.

“What is that?” he stammered, his voice cracking slightly as he looked from the gold coin to my eyes.

“Oh, just some loose change I found behind my mirror,” I said calmly, leaning back in the booth. “Grandma told me to tell you that she really appreciated how hard you worked on her barn floor. She said she hoped the concrete dried nicely.”

Michael’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. He looked down at the gold coin, then back at me, realizing in one horrible second that he had spent three days destroying an entire farmhouse and pouring concrete for a box that held nothing but his own greed.

He didn’t say another word for the rest of the meeting. He signed the estate papers with trembling hands, his face pale as a sheet.

I kept the gold coins, and I used my share of the land sale to buy a small, beautiful cottage of my own, far away from Kankakee. Every time I look at my new mantle, I think of my grandmother’s clever mind, and the old green tin that showed me exactly who my family really was.