His aunt had a money drawer. Everyone knew about it. This was Wayne’s mother’s sister—her older sister who lived an hour and a half away, up in the hills, away from everyone else. She ran a laundromat there and owned several rental properties and built her own little empire. Aunt Dawdy was her own person and Wayne liked that about her. She didn’t gossip along with the other aunts and she refused to attend holiday gatherings or acknowledge birthdays or make chit-chat. Her husband killed
himself when he was forty—his depression was unmedicated and he lost his job and was forced to lower himself to collecting unemployment; then he became addicted to speed and it declined from there. She wallowed for a year, drinking and taking long walks around her neighborhood in a circular pattern—around and around until she exhausted herself. But eventually she righted herself and used the insurance money to purchase the laundromat and to put a down payment on a split level by the river and then ten years later she had enough saved to double-down with a townhouse across town. Aunt Dawdy worked herself sane. 

Three or four times a year Wayne’s mother would drive him and Trish to see her Aunt Dawdy—forcing them to come with at times. Wayne never minded. Aunt Dawdy gave them homemade cupcakes and scones and hot chocolate and in the summer she kept her freezer stocked with popsicles and ice cream sandwiches and she opened her arms and said “help yourself.” She was generous and a kind of grandmother to them, almost—since their grandparents had all died young (Wayne often wondered if the timbre of his life might be different if he knew his grandparents). 

When his mother and Aunt Dawdy were outside on the porch drinking iced tea and watching the sun set, Wayne liked to dip his greedy paws into her money drawer, see what he could pull out. It was mostly quarters and dimes and a few oddball nickels and half-dollars, but it also contained two dollar bills and some old Confederate money and knick-knacks, also. Trish knew about it and went along although she wouldn’t look Wayne in the eyes. She would keep watch. He would position himself near the desk, making sure that the adults still peered straight ahead, off into the flamed horizon. Trish watched and Wayne reached behind with his left hand and opened the drawer and grabbed what he could and jam it into his pocket, closed the door with the back of his hand and made sure nobody saw a thing. He knew it was wrong and yet he did it anyway.

He would push the money deep into his front left pocket and only later would he share his loot with Trish. Only later would he hand her a percentage, parceling it out—one for her, two for him, one for her, three for him. She would protest that she kept a lookout but he explained that he did most of the work. All she did was keep her eyes open. 

Wayne avoided mirrors for this reason. He hated his behavior and had no idea why he did the shit he did sometimes. His mind was filled with guilt and regret
constantly. He just did what he did at the time and then figured out how he felt about it later. He couldn’t help himself. Wayne and Trish never talked about it—it was just something they did when they went to visit Aunt Dawdy. She had those delicious pastries and milk and lemonade aplenty and she played pretty music for them. For those bastards with her extra change jangling in their pockets. Guess she never figured it out, or if she did she overlooked it out of love—just something extra for those kids. That’s what Wayne believed. It’s fine, he imagined her telling herself. The price of having your grubby nieces and nephews over for a few hours, grubby to the soul. Love them anyway, despite what they do. Those grasping hands.

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Nathan Leslie won the 2019 Washington Writers' Publishing House prize for fiction for his satirical collection of short stories, Hurry Up and Relax. He is also the series editor for Best Small Fictions. Invisible Hand (2022) and A Fly in the Ointment (2023) are his latest books. Nathan’s previous books of fiction include Three Men, Root and Shoot, Sibs, and The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice. He is also the author of a collection of poems, Night Sweat. Nathan is currently the founder and organizer of the Reston Reading Series in Reston, Virginia, and the publisher and editor of the online journal Maryland Literary Review. Previously he was series editor for Best of the Web and fiction editor for Pedestal Magazine. His fiction has been published in hundreds of literary magazines such as Shenandoah, North American Review, Boulevard, Hotel Amerika, and Cimarron Review. Nathan’s nonfiction has been published in The Washington Post, Kansas City Star, and Orlando Sentinel. Nathan lives in Northern Virginia.

ART BY - M P Pratheesh