Seven Checks Left Untouched in a Cedar Desk Drawer

Editoron

Ezoic

The Oakhaven County courthouse sat on the corner of Market and Third, its red brick facade stained with fifty years of Ohio coal soot. Inside, the basement steps were worn down in the center, hollowed out by generations of people looking for marriage licenses, death certificates, and the deeds to their family land.

The air down there smelled of damp concrete and eighty years of yellowing paper.

Sarah, my classmate from Oakhaven High who now worked behind the high oak counter, looked around the empty office before she clicked her blue pen.

“I can get in trouble for this, Cathy,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper that barely carried over the low hum of the fluorescent lights.

“Nobody is looking, Sarah,” I said, my voice rising slightly at the end of the sentence as if asking for her approval. I kept my hand on the counter, continuously twisting the silver band on my right index finger.

Ezoic

Sarah tapped her fingers on the edge of her green laminate desk, her eyes darting toward the frosted glass partition where the county recorder sat.

“Your father is a senior partner at the biggest firm in town,” she said, her voice tight. “If he finds out I was digging through his private filings, I won’t have a job by five o’clock.”