- Find one thing. Just one. Something small. Something that’s just yours. And put your name on it.
- I took a pen off the counter.
- A ballpoint. Blue. With HIGHWAY 41 GAS & GO printed on the side.
- And I wrote my name.
- Not Patty Dunn.
- Not Mrs. Gary Dunn.
- My whole name. The one my mother gave me.
- Patricia Ann Whitmire Dunn.
- Whitmire. My maiden name. My mother’s name. My daddy’s name. The name I hadn’t written since my wedding day.
- I looked at it.
- Then I did one more thing.
- Under my signature, in small letters, I wrote:
- Week 1. For Mama.
- Mr. Mehta was watching.
- He didn’t say anything.
- He just nodded.
- Then I asked him something.
- “Mr. Mehta,” I said. “Would you do me a favor?”
- “Of course, Mrs. Dunn.”
- “Would you initial it?” I said. “Next to my name. With the date. So somebody else knows I signed it. Here. At the counter. The day I bought it.”
- He looked at me for a long moment.
- He didn’t ask why.
- He picked up the pen.
- Next to my signature, he wrote:
- A.M. — 3/24/06.
- “Thank you,” I said.
- I put the ticket in my purse.
- I went home.
- I stuck it on the refrigerator.
- Under a magnet.
- A pineapple.
- Yellow and green. Plastic. Kind of ugly. My mother bought it at a gift shop in Tybee Island in 1987. On the only vacation she and my daddy ever took. It had been on her refrigerator for nineteen years.
- I took it from her kitchen the day after the funeral.
- The ticket didn’t win.
- I didn’t expect it to.
- That wasn’t the point.
- Every Friday for nineteen years, I bought one ticket.
- Same gas station. Same counter. Same Mr. Mehta. Same numbers.
- 3. 11. 22. 16. 14.
- Two dollars out of the weekly grocery budget. Out of Gary’s two hundred.
- I’d fill up the car. I’d go inside. Mr. Mehta would have the ticket ready before I got to the counter. He’d memorized the numbers by the second month.
- I’d turn it over.
- I’d sign the back.
- Patricia Ann Whitmire Dunn.
- And underneath, every week, the number.
- Week 2.
- Week 3.
- Week 52.
- Week 104.
- And Mr. Mehta would initial it. With the date.
- Every single time.
- For nineteen years.
- Some weeks, I wrote something else. Under the number.
- Not always. Just sometimes. When something happened.
- Week 87. Robby graduated.
- Week 211. Tessa passed her nursing boards.
- Week 340. Kyle enlisted. I’m scared.
- Week 412. June’s second heart surgery. She made it.
- Week 506. First grandbaby. Lily Rose. 7 lbs 4 oz.
- Some weeks, I wrote things I didn’t tell anybody.
- Week 133. Gary forgot our anniversary again.
- Week 298. Gary said I was getting fat. In front of his brother.
- Week 445. Gary went to Biloxi with the Moose Lodge for four days. Didn’t tell me until he was in the truck.
- Week 617. Found a receipt in Gary’s jacket. Olive Garden. Chattanooga. Two entrees. I wasn’t there.
- I’d stick the ticket under the pineapple.
- I’d check the numbers on Saturday morning. With my coffee. In the newspaper. The Daily Citizen-News.
- Nothing.
- Never anything.
- Once, in 2014, three numbers came up. Four dollars. I used it to buy two more tickets. Neither one won.
- On Saturday afternoon, I’d take the ticket down from the pineapple.
- I’d put it in a shoebox.
- In the back of my closet. Behind my winter boots. Where Gary never looked.
- Nineteen years.
- Nine hundred and eighty-eight tickets.
- Every one signed.
- Every one numbered.
- Every one initialed by Arjun Mehta.
- Gary made fun of me.
- Every single week.
PART 3
