Fiction
5 min
Searching for a Penny
Chris Malin
"Why do I still pay with cash?!?"
The sun had set, and the stores had closed. She was on her hands and knees, scanning the pools of light splashed by insect-filled sodium lights along the strip mall wall. She had tripped on a crack in a dark part of the sidewalk and barely managed to save the cake she'd just bought. Her change had scattered.
She set the cake box on the ground. Through the cellophane, the cake read, "Happy Birthday, Dad. Love, Penny."
Only her father called her that. Short for Penelope, her middle name. The name of his creative and rebellious grandmother. Penny's first name, Sara, came from her mother's pragmatic and judgmental side of the family. They would not have liked Penelope.
She grabbed her wrinkled receipt to see how much change she'd dropped, but she already knew the answer. "Eighteen cents," she'd thought as the clerk handed it to her. A dime. A nickel. Three pennies. Eighteen cents. She always kept track of the change.
She told herself that paying with cash helped her budget. But really, she did it for the pennies. In fact, if a store had a spare change tray near the register, she'd grab all the pennies and drop dimes or quarters in their place. Once, in a rush at a gas station, she'd scooped up an entire tray (73 cents) and left a $20 bill as payment.
"Eighteen cents."
She scanned the sidewalk along the dark asphalt edge of the parking lot. "The dime!" she said to herself, reaching to pick it up.
"The nickel should be easy to... There!"
To her left, a newer looking penny caught her eye. "Two to go."
Minutes passed before she found the next penny face down a few feet away. She picked it up and turned it over to see the date. The year her father was born.
–
"You're my precious Penny," her father used to say. "My grandmother would have loved you." He had inherited some part of Penelope's creative dreamer streak that he was rarely allowed to indulge.
When she was little, she watched her father sink quietly into his chair at family dinners. His parents had died early, and both his brother and sister lived far away. Her mother's family lived close enough to come over regularly.
She has a vague memory of her father talking during meals with the in-laws when she was younger. The table would be set with the colors of the season. Candles that were never lit stood in wedding-gift candle holders. Her father spoke of passions and dreams. The others asked about work and promotions.
Over time, the room stayed the same, the unlit candles gathered dust, but her father changed. He became increasingly silent to avoid the wave of disapproval that even she could feel. Finally, he surrendered saying grace before they dined.
"Amen."
When her father was alone with her, though, some part of the dreamer still lived. They'd walk together, and he'd point out the shapes of the clouds or the texture of the trees. He'd ask her to invent a new color or sound. Once, they put their hands on a large stone, closed their eyes, and tried to feel the age of the Earth.
Every Saturday he would take her grocery shopping. Grocery money was stashed in an envelope in a kitchen drawer, a pragmatic approach to a tight budget. He'd grab the shopping list and the envelope, then call her name. She'd reach him before he could hide his furrowed brow as he compared the length of the list to the money in the envelope. He'd sigh, softly but heavily, thinking he was alone. When he looked up and saw her, though, he always smiled.
At the store, he'd give her the envelope and let her pay. She got good at estimating the cost before the cashier finished. Handing over cash, she'd say exactly how much change they should receive. She put any remaining dollars into the envelope. The coins were treated differently.
She and her father would load the groceries into the car then sit together on the rear bumper. "Let's see what we've got." She'd get the coins out carefully. They'd turn each over, checking the images on both sides, the dates and the mint marks. They would look at the year of each and try to imagine what their shopping center and their entire town must have been like then.
The pennies were the most important. Her father had told her about a rare one from the year she was born. Some coins had been accidentally hit twice by the stamping die, creating imperfections. The imperfections made the coins valuable. One of them could be worth enough to make some of her father's dreams come true. "It's poetic, isn't it?" he'd said.
Every time they found a penny from that year, they'd examine it expectantly, hoping for valuable imperfections instead of valueless precision. Every week they looked at the pennies and found only cents. He'd pat her on the shoulder. "We'll keep dreaming."
When they got home, he'd drop most of the change in a jar by the door. Pennies from the year she was born, though, he'd take upstairs to keep in a jar near his bed, under the light that he had used to read her bedtime stories when she was little.
Entering high school, she felt the pull of "Sara." Her hobbies became increasingly practical ("How will this look on a college application?"). Her time became increasingly filled. She chose activities that took her away from walks, away from imagination.
One Saturday early in her junior year, she was distracted as they shopped together. It was a waste of time. She went out of a sense of obligation, but it was a waste of time. She had better things to do. She grabbed the change from the clerk. Eighteen cents. One dime. One nickel. Three pennies.
Her father sat on the bumper, and her impatience overflowed. "Dad, can we just go? I'm tired of this. It's always the same stupid thing!" She waved her arms, exasperated, and the change slipped out of her hand, scattering. Eighteen cents. Gone.
In her father's face, she saw surprise, then pain, then resigned composure. She froze for an instant."Oh, I..." Then she scrambled for the coins, finding all but one cent.
"It's fine," he said. "Maybe we only got seventeen." He managed a smile. "Let's go." She knew there had been eighteen cents. She always knew. The receipt in her hand confirmed it. As they drove home quietly, she felt an emptiness. The missing penny. Maybe something more.
They continued their weekly ritual for a while, but it felt different. Her father was quieter, like he had become at those family dinners over the years. After a few weeks practicality took over. She was busy, and it didn't make sense to waste time at the store.
"I'm really busy. Just go without me."
"I don't mind going at a different time, if it helps," her father said.
She didn't hear herself say it at the time, but she remembers it now. "No. Just go. I'll see you later."
When he returned, she heard the familiar sound of change dropping into the jar by the door, then his footsteps up the stairs and the sound of a single coin dropping into the jar in his room.
When she left for college, his father gave her a penny from the year she was born. The only one he'd ever parted with.
At school, her decisions were increasingly practical. Her majors, classes, clubs and activities all moved toward an internship, a job, a career, but not really a life.
She's been out of college for a few years now. She doesn't get home as much as she thought she would. Visits always seem so rushed, and something inside her feels distant, ignored.
–
So here she is, on her hands and knees for 20 minutes, running late, cake box on the sidewalk, desperately searching for the last of her change, when the forgotten memory of that single missing coin from a Saturday years ago hits her.
"Eighteen cents"
She gasps as a hole seems to open within her and a flood of forsaken dreams rushes out. She sits back against the hard ground. She begins to cry.
As a car drives past, a shard of light refracted by her tears catches her attention. She turns to see the last coin. Her legs shake as she stands to retrieve it. Bending over, the coin is face up. She blinks to clear her vision as she sees the year she was born.
"Hello, Penny."
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