Folks around the town affectionately called the narrator, Helen, “Miss Sugar,” perhaps because she always kept a jar of peppermints ready or because her pies smelled like pure Sunday morning. But her heart was not the steady kind anymore; she needed expensive surgery she could not afford, keeping her world small. This quiet predictability shattered when a moving truck stopped across the street. Out stepped a young woman, Abby, and her little girl, Lottie, followed by the imposing older woman: Greta. Helen’s breath caught, recognizing Greta—the woman her husband, Jack, left her for twenty years ago. Greta, still possessing that smug air, froze for a half second before treating Helen as if she were completely invisible.
Despite Greta’s immediate coldness, Abby was shy yet kind, contrasting sharply with her mother’s sharp edges. Abby politely introduced herself, and Helen welcomed them, noting it was a good place to raise a child. However, Greta soon showed her true teeth. When little Lottie attempted to play with the neighborhood children in Helen’s yard, Greta stormed across the street, snatched Lottie’s arm, and snapped, “She doesn’t need to be around strangers.” While standing still, hands trembling from the old pain, Helen noticed a strange flicker. Abby possessed the same little mole on her chin and the same soft gray-green eyes that Helen’s baby once had. The unsettling realization made Helen question whether the pain she had buried for twenty years had truly stayed buried.
By August, Helen and Abby chatted more frequently, even exchanging jars of homemade jam, despite Greta’s disapproving glares. Then, Abby mentioned having a small get-together for her birthday this Saturday. Helen’s heart stumbled; it was the exact day her baby girl had been born and then gone. Helen attended the party, bringing a warm pie. Greta sat at a distance, watching every move. Later, Greta crossed the yard and hissed, “You shouldn’t be here. You’ve done enough damage already.” That evening, returning home, Helen nearly tripped over a plastic bag on her porch. Inside, she found fifty thousand dollars in crisp bills, smelling faintly of expensive perfume. After taking the money to Sheriff Dale, who called it a “blessing,” Helen saw Greta watching from her porch, her face pale and scared, confirming the cash was not kindness but guilt.
September brought a quiet, misty morning, and then another plastic bag appeared on Helen’s doorstep, containing a second stack of $50,000 and a desperate note. Helen knew the money was an attempt to buy her silence. Taking the two bags of cash, she immediately marched across the street and found Greta alone. Helen placed the money on the table and cornered Greta, demanding her to “say what you did.” Greta, weeping, finally confessed the horrific truth: Helen and Greta were in the hospital giving birth on the same night. Greta’s baby was stillborn, but Helen’s was alive. Jack, planning to be with Greta, declared it “wasn’t fair” for them to have no child, so he “made the switch,” telling Greta it was mercy.
Greta explained they wanted a baby desperately, convincing themselves Helen would never know, and Abby would grow up in a whole family. Now that Abby was grown, Greta frantically begged Helen not to tell her, insisting, “She’s happy. She doesn’t need to know.” Greta then pointed at the money, stating, “That’s what the money’s for—to keep it buried.” Helen stared at the neat stack of bills, her voice cold as she spoke. “You think a hundred thousand dollars can buy twenty years of motherhood? You think guilt has a price tag?” Helen decided in that moment that she would not take Abby away from the life she knew. “You don’t have to worry, Greta. I won’t take her from you,” she stated, recognizing that Abby already had found her way back without anyone’s permission.
That night, Helen took both bags of money out to the yard. One by one, she fed every single bill to the fire pit. The cash curled and blackened, the expensive perfume burning off in bitter smoke, until nothing remained but quiet ash. She knew Greta was watching across the street, her light flickering behind the curtain. The following morning, Abby came by with a box of cupcakes, saying her mom mentioned Helen wasn’t feeling well. Helen smiled, looking at the little mole on Abby’s chin and her gray-green eyes. Abby commented, “You remind me of someone. Someone I can’t quite remember.” Helen simply replied, “Maybe you do, darlin’. Maybe you do,” finally letting go of the past that once owned her, knowing some debts are not meant to be paid but to be burned.
