On Sunday afternoon she called her son. Darius lived much of the year in another city, although he traveled constantly for work. He had spent his career in banking, starting in compliance and moving through risk management until, against expectations he rarely discussed, he had become chief executive of Harland Community Bank, the regional institution that now oversaw the branch. Loretta was proud of him, but she was determined that the title would not become a substitute for the character she and Thomas had tried to teach him.
"I can have somebody look at that account tomorrow," he offered when she described the tax deadline. "Not because of who you are. Because it sounds like the servicing correction never reached the right department."
"I appreciate that, baby, but I have the check and the documents. I am going to handle it like anybody else should be allowed to handle it."
"Mama, you know you can ask for help."
"And you know I will when I need it." She softened her voice. "You have important work. I can stand in a bank line without an escort."
He laughed, but not entirely with amusement. He knew the old pride in that statement. He had inherited some of it. "Call me as soon as you're done."
"I will," she promised.
He did not tell her he would be in town on Monday for a confidential review of several branch performance complaints. The bank had expanded rapidly during the previous eighteen months, and reports about unusual account restrictions at the Harland branch had begun troubling his compliance team. The statistics were incomplete, the explanations too polished.
He had planned to observe the public lobby for a short while before meeting regional leadership. When his mother's appointment and his visit happened to fall on the same morning, he considered calling her and decided against it. She had asked to be treated as an ordinary customer. He wanted to know whether his institution could manage something that basic.
Monday arrived bright and humid. Loretta took extra care getting ready, ironing her dress, brushing her coat, slipping her check between two sheets of clean cardboard so its edges would not crease. She tucked her settlement letter, driver's license, account statements, and tax notice into a manila folder. In the mirror by the front door she adjusted her gloves and looked, for a brief moment, at the framed photograph of Thomas hanging above the hall table.
"Just paperwork," she told him. "Nothing we haven't handled before."
The bus carried her through Valley Heights, past a laundromat and the old elementary school where she had taught for thirty-one years. A woman with a stroller recognized her and asked whether she was still growing violets. A man at the next stop offered his seat, which she declined with a smile. The conversation was ordinary, and that was what she wanted from the rest of the morning: a transaction, a receipt, and the quiet satisfaction of returning home with one fewer worry.