"No, I didn't," Maeve said.
Her voice came out very clear. Clearer than she expected. It sounded like someone else's voice, someone older, someone who was not afraid of anything.
"No, I didn't," she said again. "I didn't offer. He asked, and I said no, and he took it."
The kitchen went silent. Even the television in the next room seemed to have gone to a commercial with no sound. Kenzie, in the doorway, uncrossed her arms.
Grandma Bev set the grocery bag down on the counter by the stove. She did it slowly. Maeve heard the soft thump of a gallon of milk and the crackle of paper settling. A box of saltines tipped over inside the bag. Then her grandmother walked around the end of the island, past Maeve, past the stack of textbooks, until she was standing directly in front of her son, close enough that she had to tip her head back to look up at him through the bottoms of her glasses. She came up to about the second button of his shirt.
"Put it back," she said.
"Mom—"
"This account is matched with money I deposited." Her voice was low, and level, and terrible. "Every dollar that girl put in that jar this summer, I put a dollar beside it at the Marlow Community Credit Union, in an account with her name on it and mine. So you are not standing in this kitchen taking twelve hundred dollars out of a pickle jar, Douglas. You are standing here taking twenty-four hundred dollars, and half of it is mine. Put every dollar back before we discuss the rest."
Her father did not move. His hand was still at his back pocket. Maeve could see the edge of the folded bills between his fingers, a little green wedge.
"You did what?" he said.
"You heard me."
"You've been putting money in an account. For her. All summer."
"Every Sunday."
"And you didn't think to mention it. To me. Her father."
"No," said Grandma Bev. "I did not."