I pulled it out. My hands were shaking. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.

The envelope had my name on it in Mama’s handwriting. It was dated from three months ago.

“For my boy,” it said.

I sat down at the table. I didn’t want to open it. I think part of me knew what was inside.

I tore the corner off. Inside were two keys and a slip of paper.

The paper was a note.

“Wanda found the passbook,” it read. “She thinks she got it all. She doesn’t know about the locker in Spartanburg.”

I looked at the keys. They were heavy brass.

I sat there for a long time. I thought about Wanda. I thought about how she hadn’t visited in three years. I thought about how she had been so quick to grab the furniture and the china, acting like she was doing me a favor by letting me have the house.

She didn’t know.

She didn’t know that Mama knew her better than she thought.

I got up and walked to the window. It was dusk. The streetlights were flickering on, one by one.

I remembered back when I was a kid, hiding my fishing lures in a jar just like that one. Mama had laughed and told me that secrets are like seeds. You plant them deep, and you never know what’s going to grow.

I looked back at the box. There were eleven jars left.

I reached for the next one, a rooster with a bright red comb. I tipped it over.

Nothing slid out.

I turned it upside down and shook it. I heard something metallic clink against the ceramic.

I grabbed the butter knife again. I pried it open.

Inside, there was a stack of rolled-up bills. Hundred-dollar bills.

I didn’t count them. I didn’t have to. I knew there were thousands sitting there on my table.

My head started to swim. I sat back down.

“What did you do, Mama?” I whispered.

I looked at the other jars. They all looked the same. Ordinary, chipped, ugly little things.

But I knew now.

Each one was a tomb. Each one held a piece of a life that Wanda had tried to steal before it even ended.

I didn’t call Wanda. I didn’t call the lawyer.

I sat there in the dark, watching the shadows stretch across the floor.

I wondered if I should take the money back. I wondered if I should pretend I never found it.

But then I thought about the three years. The medicine, the long nights, the way she had looked at me when she couldn’t remember my name anymore.

Wanda had sent cards. She had sent flowers.

I had given her my life.

I picked up the pig jar again. I ran my thumb over the chipped ear.

I felt a strange kind of calm settle over me. It wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t even anger anymore.

It was just the truth.