“They match because I won, baby,” I said, softly, and I laid my hand over his on the tablecloth. “All six numbers. Saturday night. The drawing was on the television while I was putting my teeth in a glass.” The dining room went completely still. The pot roast steamed on its platter. My son Charles dropped his fork on his plate, and it rang like a small bell. Mia, at the end of the table, put both hands over her mouth. Brandon did not move. His face had gone slack, as if someone had pulled out a plug. The framed ticket lay between us in its gold frame, with the brass plate that said, Forty Years of Hope. Zero Dollars Won.
“How much?” Brandon whispered. It was not a polite question, and I do not think he meant it to be. It came out of him by itself, like a hiccup. His mother, my daughter in law, hissed his name. I smiled. “Honey, it was a large jackpot. After the taxes, I will take home nineteen million, four hundred thousand dollars.” Someone in the room made a sound like a balloon losing air. Charles said, “Mama, that is not possible.” I said, “It is exactly possible. It is, in fact, a matter of arithmetic.”
I let them all stare at me for a long, delicious minute. Then I picked up my napkin and dabbed my mouth. “Now. I have a few things to say, and I would appreciate it if nobody interrupted.” I looked around the table. “I did not tell any of you because I wanted to see how you would treat me. Brandon, I am sorry to say, I learned something sad. When I was a poor old woman with a two dollar ticket, you borrowed five hundred dollars and laughed. You borrowed two thousand more and laughed again.”
A framed losing ticket given as a gag turned into a Sunday dinner where one grandmother showed her family what hope was worth.
Brandon was crying. He did not make a sound. The tears just ran down his face and dripped onto his collar. He said in a thick voice, “Grandma, I am so sorry. I was going to pay you back.” I said, “Brandon, how much do you owe me?” He swallowed. “Seven thousand three hundred dollars.” I nodded. “That is the number. I counted.” I turned to the rest of the family. “I want you all to know that I am not angry. I am a little sad, and a little amused, and very, very tired. I am eighty years old. I have been asked for money by this family every week for ten years. I never refused. I did not want you to think you had to earn my love.”
I paused. “But there is something I want you to learn, and I would like to teach it to you before I die. A love that is only open when you have something to give is not a love. It is a bank.” The silence was complete. “Mia, honey, would you come here?” My granddaughter, twenty four years old, in her plain blue church dress, got up from the table. Her hands were shaking. She stood beside me, and I took both her hands. “Mia, you have driven me to church every Sunday for four years. You have never asked me for a nickel. When I was in the hospital with my hip, you slept in the chair for nine nights.”
I looked at the family. “Mia will receive two million dollars, to do with as she pleases. The rest, I will put into a family foundation, and I will tell you more about it soon.” Mia was crying. “Grandma, I cannot. I did not do it for the money.” I said, “That is exactly why.” Brandon made a small wounded sound. I turned to him. “And you, my darling boy. I am going to pay your debts. All of them. Your credit cards, the loan on the car, the seven thousand. I am going to wipe the slate clean, because I love you.” He stared. “And then I want you to come and work for me.”
He blinked. “Work for you?” I smiled. “I am starting a foundation. I need someone to drive. I need someone to open mail, and carry boxes, and go with me to the food bank on Tuesdays. I will pay you a fair wage, and you will earn it. For one year. And at the end of that year, we will talk.” He looked at the framed ticket. He looked at me. A very long breath went out of him. “Grandma,” he said, “I would like that.” I patted his cheek. “Then it is settled.” The pot roast had grown cold.
He showed up at my door the next Tuesday at eight in the morning in a clean shirt, with his hair combed. I handed him a clipboard and a set of keys. We drove to the food bank in my old Buick, and he carried boxes of canned goods up the ramp, red faced and puffing, while the volunteers teased him. By noon, his shirt was soaked. By the end of the month, he knew the name of every client. In March, an old man at the pantry asked him, “Son, are you family to Miss Opal?” He said, “Yes, sir. I am her grandson.” He said it as if it were a title.
The foundation is called Two Dollars. It gives small grants to people who have been laughed at for dreaming. A woman in Bossier who wants to open a bakery. A man in Minden who builds boats from salvage lumber. A young girl in Haughton who has been told she is too old to learn violin at nineteen. Brandon manages the applications. He reads every one, aloud, at my kitchen table, with a pencil behind his ear. Sometimes he reads a line and has to stop, because it is too much, and I pat his arm. We have given away six million dollars in two years. I have never felt so rich.
I bought a new frame, a plain one, of cherry wood. I took out the losing ticket and put in the winning one, and had the brass plate changed. It hangs now above my kitchen table, where the sunlight reaches it every afternoon. The plate reads, Forty Years of Hope. One Winner. Brandon polished it himself, the first time he saw it, with a soft cloth and an expression I will remember until the day I die. Every Saturday I buy one more ticket, with the same six numbers. Not because I need to win. Because I already did.
