1
JADE
The envelope is waiting for me when I get home.
I almost miss it. My vision blurs at the edges. Sixteen hours awake, three different jobs. The mailbox is just another obstacle between me and my bed.
But there it is. Plain white envelope, no return address, my name written in careful block letters across the front.
No stamp.
It was hand-delivered.
My apartment building doesn't have a doorman. Anyone could have slipped this into my mailbox. I turn it over in my hands, looking for some clue about who sent it, but there's nothing. Just my name and the weight of something inside.
I should probably be more concerned about this. A mysterious envelope from an unknown sender. I tear it open as I climb the stairs to my third-floor walk-up.
A check falls out.
I catch it before it hits the floor, and that's when I see the number.
$387,443.00
I stop walking. Stand there in the stairwell between the second and third floor, staring at a piece of paper that can't possibly be real.
I make it to my apartment somehow, though I don't remember climbing the last flight of stairs. My studio is exactly as I left it this morning. The unmade bed is shoved against one wall, the tiny kitchen counter is covered in unpaid bills and my laptop sits on a stack of books.
I set the check down on the counter and pull out the stack of bills I've been avoiding. My hands shake as I sort through them.
Hospital billing statement: $180,693. The total from my mother's emergency surgery, three days in the ICU, two weeks of recovery.
Student loan summary: $151,280. Four years of undergrad, two years of my MFA.
Credit card statements, three of them, all maxed out. I add them up on my phone calculator: $22,180 plus $18,450 plus $14,840.
Total credit card debt: $55,470.
I stare at the numbers I've written down, then at the check.
$180,693 + $151,280 + $55,470 = $387,443
That's not a random number. That's not someone's idea of a generous gift or a lucky lottery win.
That's the exact amount I owe.
Down to the last dollar.
Someone knows everything.
My hands shake as I search the envelope for something else—a letter, an explanation, a ransom note, anything. There's only a small card, expensive cardstock, with two lines written in the same careful handwriting:
You deserve better.
—P.C.
That's it. There are no instructions or demands. No phone number or address.
Just money and two initials I don't recognize.
