Through the slats of the booth door, the bank clock clicked to 2:31 p.m. Twenty-nine minutes remained until 3:00 p.m., when Mrs. Gable would lock the vault and put Box 412 on the Monday probate drill list.
Miriam kept her fingers on the brass barrel. "What does she mean, only two tries?"
"It's Dad's old hardware-store strongbox," Judith said, sitting down in the second oak chair. "Force the latch twice on the wrong numbers and the drop pin jams the lock shut for good."
Miriam looked at the wheels set to 0-9-1-4-0-7. "Why didn't September 14, 2007 work?"
"I remember the date, Miriam."
"That was the afternoon eleven thousand four hundred dollars was withdrawn from Dad's store account before the doors closed, and a month later two new ovens went into your bakery on Water Street."
Judith looked straight across the narrow table at her sister.
"Is that a question, Mim?" Judith asked quietly. "Because Mom's note doesn't say accuse your sister. It says ask."
Miriam looked at the brass lock, then at the sister she had crossed the street to avoid for eighteen years. Slowly, she took her hand off the chest.
"What happened in 2007, Judith? And what date did you keep in your purse?"
Judith unclasped her leather purse, opened her wallet, and took out a folded yellow county treasurer's receipt worn soft along the creases. She unfolded it flat on the oak table under the lamp.
"You told Aunt Evelyn I took that money for my bakery ovens, Miriam, and you never once asked me to my face," Judith said. "I didn't take a dime from Dad's account. I paid off the property-tax lien on your house on April 7, 2009, out of my bakery savings so you wouldn't lose the parlor where you taught piano, and Mom made me swear not to tell you because she knew your pride wouldn't let you sleep under a roof I saved."
The hum of the ceiling fan filled the small booth.
Miriam leaned forward and read the yellow slip through her glasses. Under the Ross County Treasurer heading stood her own address on Maple Avenue, marked Paid in Full for $11,384.50 in delinquent taxes.
Stamped across the corner in purple ink was the date: 04 - 07 - 09.
April 7, 2009.
"What about the eleven thousand four hundred dollars from the store?" Miriam whispered.
"Dad wired that himself two days before his stroke to pay the lumber supplier in Circleville so Mom wouldn't be sued," Judith said. "And I leased my ovens on a seven-year loan right upstairs at this bank."
Miriam pressed her knuckles to her lips. "In 2009, when my recital classes shrank, I knew I was two years behind on the house taxes. When the paid receipt came, Arthur told me a late refund from Dad's store had covered it."
"Mom asked Arthur to tell you that," Judith said softly. "She saw the tax-sale notice on your hall table when you had the flu. She came to the bakery after closing in the rain and asked if I could help save the house where the Kimball stood."
Miriam looked down at the two white cards lying beside the yellow receipt.
Judith's card read 4 - 0 - 7. April 7.
Miriam's card read 0 - 9 - 1. The year 09, followed by a 1.
"Why the one at the end of mine?" Miriam asked.
Judith's expression softened. "When we played four-hand duets on Mom's Kimball, which part did I play?"
"Left-hand bass," Miriam said.
"Stanza one," Judith said. "Remember what she wrote across the top of the page?"
Miriam heard their mother's voice clearly in the quiet booth: "Wait for the bass, Miriam. The left hand sets the measure."
Judith played left-hand bass. Her card, 4 - 0 - 7, had to go first on the left side of the barrel. Miriam's card, 0 - 9 - 1, went second.
Miriam slid the cherrywood chest across the oak table toward her sister. "You dial it, Judy."
Judith reached out with her baker's hands and turned the six brass wheels: 4-0-7-0-9-1.
At 2:46 p.m., Judith pressed the thumb release. The brass latch clicked open cleanly.
Inside the cherrywood chest, smelling faintly of cedar and Clara's lavender soap, lay four things.
On top was the clear deed to the Maple Avenue house in Miriam's name, beside $84,000 in bank certificates divided equally between both sisters.
Next to them lay a thick envelope holding $11,400 reimbursement that Clara had saved dollar by dollar from her widow's pension over sixteen years, with a note in her neat script saying: "Now nobody owes anybody."
At the bottom rested the yellowed sheet music for "Whispering Hope."
Miriam lifted the folded pages with both hands. Above stanza 1, Clara's old pencil note still stood: "Wait for the bass, Miriam. The left hand sets the measure."
Then Miriam looked at the wide margins on both sides of the music. Filling every blank inch were eighteen years of small pencil notes Clara had written every time one daughter visited right after the other left:
"November 14, 2011: Judy brought warm cinnamon rolls at ten, and Miriam came at two and ate one. She said the icing had too much nutmeg, then wrapped a second one to take home."
"May 8, 2016: Miriam played Whispering Hope for me after lunch. Judy stood on the back porch under her umbrella and listened through the screen door until the last chord."
"October 11, 2025: Blue Buick pulled out at 4:20, and the silver Honda sat across the street for twenty minutes. My girls are thirty feet apart, but next Friday they will sit at the same table."
Miriam's vision blurred. She reached across the open chest and laid her right hand over Judith's left hand on top of the yellowed pages.
"On Tuesday I sat in my car across the street from the hospice house because I saw your Buick," Miriam whispered. "I waited twenty minutes too long for you to leave, Judy, and missed her last waking hour."
Judith turned her hand palm-up and held tightly to her sister's fingers.
"She knew you were out there, Mim," Judith said softly. "Her bed faced the window. Right before she closed her eyes, she looked out at your car and told me, go on home now, Judy, your sister has been waiting in the cold."
For five quiet minutes inside the oak booth, neither sister let go of the other's hand.
At 2:56 p.m., they returned the tin drawer to Mrs. Gable and walked up the marble stairs together as the three o'clock bells rang through the October rain.
Out on Paint Street, Miriam's silver Honda sat across the road. Directly in front of the bank steps waited Judith's blue Buick.
Instead of sitting in her car across the street, Miriam tucked the sheet music under her coat and walked Judith out to the blue Buick in the rain.
When Judith unlocked the doors, Miriam opened the passenger door and got into the seat beside her sister.
Miriam fastened her seatbelt and looked over at Judith. "Does the bakery on Water Street still have cinnamon rolls left at three o'clock?"
Judith smiled and started the engine. "Let's go see."