There were three keys to the release fund's office. Two belonged to the volunteers. The third had been given to me when I cleaned the rooms on Sundays.
I still had it because nobody had remembered to ask.
At eleven on Friday night, I stood outside the office with a shopping bag and listened to the building settle. Above it lived a woman who could hear a dropped spoon through two floors. I'd chosen the hour when her television was loudest.
I wasn't thinking of this as a burglary yet. I'd promised myself I would put the money back. My daughter was being transferred in the morning, away from the local holding center to a prison five hours north. The court had set a release amount I couldn't reach.
The fund had twelve people ahead of her.
Iona, who ran the evening desk, had said they couldn't move my daughter to the front of the queue. She'd cried while saying it. I'd hated her for that.
The key turned easily.
Inside, donation envelopes lay in locked trays waiting for the Saturday bank run. I knew where the tray keys were kept. I also knew the fund had stopped keeping cash there after a robbery three years earlier, then started again when the bank closed its night deposit service.
I switched on the desk lamp.
Each envelope had a person's name and the amount already raised. Beside them lay the morning release list. I began with the largest envelope, then opened a second.
When I had enough, I stopped counting.
The office phone rang.
I froze. The answering machine picked up, and Iona's voice filled the room.
"Forgot to switch off the kettle again. If anyone's still there, could you check? I'm coming back anyway."
I looked at the kettle. It was off. Iona was always afraid of leaving things on.
I put the money into the shopping bag and reached for the lamp.
Headlights moved across the window.
There was a small storage room behind the office. I stepped inside and pulled its door almost shut. Through the gap I watched Iona come in, carrying a supermarket bag and rubbing her eyes.
Iona checked the kettle. Then she noticed the open tray.
"Hello?"
I held my breath.
Iona went to the telephone. She began dialing, stopped, and looked toward the storage room.
"Tessa?"
It was the shopping bag that had betrayed me. I could see its reflection in the glass of a framed certificate opposite the door. The same bright red bag I'd brought to every cleaning shift.
I stepped out.
Iona didn't look at the bag. She looked at my face.
"Don't do this."
"I'll repay it."
"They need it tomorrow."
"So does she."
Iona sat down. I wished she'd shout, threaten me, become somebody it was easier to leave in this room.
"You took Samuel's," Iona said, looking at the empty envelope. "His mother raised most of it. She sold her car."
I knew Samuel's mother. We'd waited together outside the holding center. She'd shown me a photograph of the garden her son planted before his arrest.
"She's not the only one with a child."
"I know."
The television upstairs grew quiet. I could hear a chair moving across the ceiling.
Iona reached for the phone again. I caught her wrist. We struggled against the desk, the receiver swinging between us. She struck her head on the edge and fell.
I let go at once.
"Iona?"
She was breathing. Blood ran from a small cut above her eyebrow. I knelt beside her and put a folded towel under her head. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely dial for an ambulance.
I gave the address. The operator asked me to stay with the patient.
I looked at the bag.
I told the operator the front door would be open and left before the siren arrived.
By six I'd paid my daughter's release. By seven we were outside together in the thin morning light. She kept touching my arm, as though checking that the street was real.
"Where did you get it?"
"People helped."
Across the entrance stood Samuel's mother. She held a plastic bag containing a clean shirt and a packet of cookies. A clerk had just told her the money hadn't arrived.
She saw me and came toward us.
"They let yours out."
I nodded.
The woman smiled. It took effort, but she managed it.
"That's good. That's something good."
I wanted to give her the rest of the money. There was no rest. Every note I'd taken had gone through the release window.
My phone rang. An unfamiliar number. It might have been the hospital, or the police, or Iona calling from a borrowed phone. I let it ring.
Samuel's mother pressed the cookies into my daughter's hands.
"He can have some tomorrow," she said. "You eat these now."
On the bus, my daughter opened the packet and offered me one. I took it because refusing would require an explanation. I held it all the way home, feeling the crumbs break against my palm.
