Free Follow Me by Joanna Scott

still married, least on paper.
    “No children?”
    Georgie explained that Mason and Shirley had had a child, a little girl, who drowned in the Tuskee when she was two. Fell
     through the ice. No one in the Jackson family liked to talk about it, though. The only one who ever told stories was Swill’s
     wife, and only then when Swill wasn’t around. Anyway, Shirley left Mason after the girl drowned. She just up and left town.
     Didn’t even say good-bye.
    “Where’d she go?”
    “Disappeared. She was last seen at the station in Amity boarding a bus heading west.”
    “And Mason still wears his ring?”
    “Remember, Stevie, when you asked him about that ring? Uncle Mason said the ring was stuck. He’d have to cut off his finger,
     he said, if he wanted to take off the ring.”
    What a fine thought! “Chop, chop,” the boy said, slicing the air with a butter knife.
    “You, stop that. Anyway, it was the only time I ever heard Uncle Mason mention that ring. If I were you I wouldn’t ask him
     about the past. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
    “No, I guess not.”
    The waitress swooped in, setting the pieces of pie in front of them. “Hey, handsome,” she said, leaning on her elbows toward
     Stevie. “Do I make a mean float or what?”
    He looked uncertain about how to reply, and then he growled, “I’m going to suck your blood!”
    “Oh, you’ll be a heartbreaker,” said the waitress.
    And that was the end of the conversation with Georgie about Uncle Mason. Stevie wanted to leave as soon as he’d finished his
     float. Georgie wanted to go look in the window of the bridal shop to see what they had on the mannequin this week. She was
     planning to sew her own dress and two for Harvey Fitzgerald’s little sisters, who would be the bridesmaids.
    Sally thought a lot about what Georgie had told her, how trouble had once struck in Uncle Mason’s quiet life. He’d lost a
     daughter to the river, and his marriage had gone sour. He had no interest in spending the money he’d earned over the course
     of his life. All he could think to do with it was put it in a box, stacks of bills tucked safely away for him to ignore.
    The day after talking with Georgie, and then the next day and the next, Sally stared at Uncle Mason, wondering if while he
     whittled and puffed on his pipe he was remembering his troubles. And when her wonder was too expansive and abstract a feeling
     to tolerate, she’d wait for him to leave the house, and then she’d get the box and open it.
    Opening the box, she’d think about what she would have done with all that cash, if it had been hers. Stacks and stacks of
     bills. She’d stare at the money until she’d think she heard the sound of someone coming. No one was ever coming, but she was
     scared of being caught. And after she put the box away she’d regret that she didn’t take the time to count the money. How
     much money he’d accumulated, she couldn’t begin to estimate. She’d count it someday, just to see what Mason Jackson of Fishkill
     Notch was worth.
    On a brisk, clear November Sunday in 1949, she discovered that Mason Jackson was worth four thousand three hundred and forty
     dollars. Who would have expected it? He never bought anything extra, just what he considered necessary or, for Sally, what
     he felt she deserved. But a fortune of four thousand three hundred and forty dollars — that was bigger than any nest egg Sally
     had ever seen. In truth, she’d never seen the money of any other nest egg, only heard stories about what her mother or her
     aunt or uncle kept under mattresses or in coffee cans in the back of a closet. This nest egg, all four thousand three hundred
     and forty dollars, seemed a whole lot of money to a nineteen-year-old girl from Tauntonville.
    The truth was, humble Mason Jackson was a rich man. All those tens and twenties were worth… how much? It occurred to her that
     in the rush of secrecy, maybe she’d counted wrong.
    On a Tuesday in