I NEVER SAW Chelsea again. She didn’t attend my class that term, nor did she return to work at the New York Fries in the food court near Churchill Square. Despite my disappointment, I understood. She had revealed too much, and the pattern of self-protection she’d had to create from childhood was not completed. Even so, I searched for her with great effort, and not without a selfish motive. After all, she had the valuable mechanical bank, and I simply could not be cavalier about so many thousands of dollars. When I phoned the owner of the antiques shop that next morning to find out if Chelsea had returned to make the sale, he was dismayed.
“You do not have the bank?”
I admitted that I did not.
The silence was long and I couldn’t interpret it. But there was some amusement in the elderly v
