Tomás pushed his cart down the fourth-floor hallway at eleven-thirty on a Tuesday night. The wheels needed oil. They squeaked against the waxed linoleum, a sound that had become part of him after eight years of pushing the same cart down the same hallways. Room 412 was last on his route before break.
The old man in 412 was awake again. Sitting up in bed, staring at the muted television where a commercial showed happy people eating hamburgers. The man's name was on the door chart. Stanley Kowalski. Same as the character from that play Tomás had seen once on public television, dubbed in Spanish.
"You're late tonight," Kowalski said.
Tomás checked his watch. "Same time as always, Mr. Kowalski."
"Call me Stan. Mr. Kowalski was my father. Bastard died when I was twelve."
Tomás emptied the wastebasket into his cart. Changed the liner. Sprayed disinfectant on the surfaces and wiped them down. Stan watched him work.
"You ever think about money?" Stan asked.
"Sometimes."
"I mean really think about it. What you'd do if you had it."
Tomás moved to the bathroom. The fluorescent light flickered twice before staying on. He poured bleach in the toilet bowl, let it sit while he cleaned the sink.
"I had money once," Stan said, louder now so Tomás could hear him in the bathroom. "Not rich-people money, but enough. Forty thousand dollars. Cash."
Tomás came out of the bathroom carrying the small trash bag.
"That's a lot of money," he said.
"Still got it, too. Every dollar."
Tomás tied the trash bag and dropped it in his cart.
"Good night, Mr. Kowalski."
"Stan. And hey—you interested in making some money? Real money?"
Tomás stopped at the door. He thought about his sister's last call from San Salvador. Her oldest boy needed surgery on his knee. Soccer injury. The good surgeon cost three thousand dollars.
"I have a job," Tomás said.
"This wouldn't interfere with your job. One day's work. Maybe two. Twenty thousand dollars. Half of what I got buried."
Tomás looked at the old man. Yellow skin stretched over bones. The cancer eating him from inside. The morphine drip clicking every few minutes.
"You should rest, Mr. Kowalski."
"Stan. Jesus Christ, my name is Stan."
Three nights later, Stan was still talking about the money. Tomás tried to clean around him, but the old man kept going. The money was in a suitcase. Samsonite, dark blue, with a broken zipper. Buried behind a house in Hamtramck where Stan used to live with his wife before she died.
"IRS was coming after me," Stan said. "This was '08, '09. Economy going to hell. I owed twelve grand in back taxes. Penalties on top of that. They were going to take the house."
"But you paid them?"
"Eventually. Borrowed from my brother. Paid him back over five years. But the money in the ground—that was my safety net. In case things got worse."
Tomás mopped around the bed. The disinfectant smell mixed with the sick smell that never really left these rooms.
"Why didn't you dig it up after?" Tomás asked.
"Kept meaning to. Then Helen got sick. Then I got sick. Now look at me. Can't even walk to the bathroom without help."
Stan reached for his water cup, hands shaking. Tomás helped him drink.
"Twenty thousand," Stan said. "You help me get it, twenty thousand is yours."
"Why me?"
"Why not you? You're here. You listen. You don't look at me like I'm already dead."
That was true. The nurses came in, did what they needed, left quickly. The doctors barely looked at Stan anymore. Nothing more to do but wait.
"I need to think about it," Tomás said.
"Don't think too long. Doctor gave me two months. That was six weeks ago."
Tomás finished his shift at seven in the morning. Drove his ten-year-old Corolla back to his apartment on the east side. The building needed paint. The elevator had been broken for two years. He climbed to the fifth floor, legs heavy from the night's work.
He made coffee and sat at his small kitchen table. Through the window, he could see the abandoned house next door. Someone had spray-painted "DIVINE" on the brick wall in purple letters.
His phone rang. His sister.
"Tomás, did you get my message?"
"Yes. About Miguel's knee."
"The surgery is scheduled for next month. If we can get the money."
"I'm working on it."
"You always say that."
"This time is different."
After she hung up, Tomás lay on his couch and tried to sleep. But he kept thinking about Stan's money in the ground. Forty thousand dollars in a suitcase. It seemed impossible. But then everything in America had seemed impossible once.
The next night, Tomás brought a notebook.
"Smart," Stan said. "Write it down. My memory's not what it was."
Stan described the house. White aluminum siding. Blue shutters. Or maybe green—he couldn't remember exactly. The house was on Towbridge Street, near the cemetery.
"We buried it at night," Stan said. "Me and Helen. She thought I was crazy, but she helped anyway. That's the kind of woman she was."
"How deep?"
"Three feet. Maybe four. Under the birch tree in the backyard. The only tree back there."
Tomás wrote it all down. Then Stan started coughing. Couldn't stop. The nurse came in—Patricia, the one who always said good morning to Tomás. She adjusted Stan's oxygen, checked his charts.
"You okay, Mr. K?" she asked.
Stan nodded, still catching his breath.
Patricia looked at Tomás. "He likes to talk, this one. Don't let him wear himself out."
After she left, Stan said, "She's divorced. You should ask her out."
"I'm too old for that."
"How old are you?"
"Fifty-two."
"I'm sixty-eight. You're not old. You're just tired."
That was true too.
On Tomás's night off, he drove to Hamtramck. Found Towbridge Street easy enough. It was a short street, maybe fifteen houses on each side. Half of them empty, windows boarded up. Detroit spreading its decay to the suburbs.
He drove slowly, looking for white siding and a birch tree. Found three possibilities. One had a blue car in the driveway. Another had toys in the yard. The third looked empty, mail overflowing from the box.
He parked and walked around the block. The empty house had a backyard fence, but the gate was open. He could see a tree that might be a birch. Hard to tell in the dark.
A dog barked somewhere. A porch light came on across the street. Tomás walked back to his car and drove home.
"Did you find it?" Stan asked the next night.
"Maybe. There's a house that fits. But people might still live there."
"Check the county records. See who owns it now."
"How do I do that?"
"Christ, I don't know. The internet? Ask someone."
Patricia came in with Stan's medications. Seven pills in a small paper cup.
"Mr. K, you're looking better tonight," she said.
"Liar. But a pretty liar."
She smiled, shook her head. Looked at Tomás.
"How long you been working here?" she asked.
"Eight years."
"And I've been here six. Funny how you can work in the same place and barely know each other."
After she left, Stan said, "She likes you."
"She's being polite."
"Twenty thousand dollars, you could take her somewhere nice."
Tomás spent his next day off at the library. The librarian, a young man with thick glasses, helped him search the county records online. The house on Towbridge had been foreclosed on two years ago. Owned by the bank now. Empty.
That night, Tomás brought a shovel from home. Kept it in his car during his shift. Stan could barely stay awake, the morphine drip turned up higher.
"You going tonight?" Stan whispered.
"Yes."
"Good. Good. Bring it here first. I want to see it again."
"It might not be there."
"It's there. I can feel it."
At four in the morning, Tomás told his supervisor he felt sick. Needed to leave early. First time in eight years.
He drove to Hamtramck. Parked two blocks from the house. Carried the shovel like a man going to work, which he supposed he was.
The backyard was overgrown with weeds. The birch tree stood in the back corner, white bark glowing in the moonlight. Tomás started digging.
The ground was hard. August in Detroit, no rain for two weeks. His shirt soaked through with sweat. After an hour, he'd dug down two feet. Nothing.
A car drove by on the street, music thumping. Tomás froze until it passed.
He kept digging. Three feet. His back screaming. His hands blistering inside his work gloves.
The shovel hit something hard.
Tomás dropped to his knees, pushed dirt away with his hands. Felt leather. The suitcase handle. He pulled, but it was stuck. Dug around it, loosening the earth. Finally yanked it free.
The suitcase was rotting, held together with duct tape. Heavy. He carried it to his car, threw the shovel in the trunk, drove away with dirt still caked on his hands.
In his apartment, Tomás set the suitcase on his kitchen table. Caught his breath. Made coffee with shaking hands. Then cut through the duct tape with a kitchen knife.
The zipper was indeed broken. He pried open the top.
The money was there. Wrapped in plastic bags, secured with rubber bands. He counted it twice. Forty thousand exactly. Old bills, twenties and fifties mostly.
Tomás sat looking at it. Forty thousand dollars on his kitchen table. He thought about his sister. Miguel's knee. Patricia's tired smile. Stan dying alone in room 412.
He took out twenty thousand, as agreed. Put it in a grocery bag. Then stopped. Looked at the remaining twenty thousand.
The thing about money was it never solved what you thought it would solve. But sometimes it solved other things. Smaller things that added up to a life.
He took another five thousand. For Miguel's surgery and some left over for his sister. That left fifteen thousand for Stan.
But Stan was dying. What did a dying man need with fifteen thousand dollars?
Tomás put the money back. All of it. Closed the suitcase and sealed it with fresh duct tape from under his sink.
At the hospital that night, Stan was worse. Eyes unfocused, breathing shallow. Patricia was checking his IV.
"He's been asking for you," she said to Tomás.
When she left, Tomás pulled his cart close to the bed.
"I found it," he said quietly.
Stan's eyes sharpened. "You did?"
"Yes. Forty thousand. Just like you said."
"Where?"
"In my car."
"Bring it. I want to touch it."
"Tomorrow. You need to rest now."
Stan grabbed Tomás's wrist. His grip still strong.
"Did you take your half?"
"Not yet."
"Take it. Tonight. Promise me."
"I promise."
Stan relaxed back into his pillows.
"Good. Good. Helen always said I should have dug it up. Given it to someone who needed it. But I liked knowing it was there. Like a secret. Like something that was just mine."
"I understand."
"Do you have family? Back home?"
"A sister. Nephews."
"Send them something. But keep some for yourself too. Don't be stupid about it."
Tomás cleaned the room quietly. Stan dozed off and on. Around six in the morning, Patricia came in for rounds.
"His numbers aren't good," she said to Tomás in the hallway. "Maybe another day or two."
"Does he have anyone?"
"A brother in Florida. They haven't talked in years."
"That's sad."
"It is."
She started to walk away, then turned back.
"Listen, this is probably inappropriate, but would you like to get coffee sometime? After work, I mean. I know this place that's open early."
Tomás looked at her. Really looked. She was pretty in a tired way. Lines around her eyes from smiling or worrying or both.
"Yes," he said. "I'd like that."
"Tomorrow morning? After shift?"
"Okay."
Stan died that night. Tomás was mopping the third floor when the code blue sounded. By the time he got to room 412, they'd already called it. Patricia was disconnecting the machines.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I know you talked to him."
"He was ready."
"Still."
The next morning, they had coffee at a diner on Woodward. Patricia talked about her daughter, eleven years old, wanted to be a doctor. Tomás talked about El Salvador, his sister, how he ended up in Detroit.
"It's strange," Patricia said. "Stan dying right after you agreed to go out with me. Like he was waiting to make sure you'd be okay."
"He was a romantic, I think."
"You think? Most people said he was a cranky old bastard."
"That too."
When they finished their coffee, Patricia asked, "So what do we do now?"
"I don't know. Maybe have coffee again tomorrow?"
"I'd like that."
That afternoon, Tomás went to Western Union. Sent three thousand dollars to his sister. Kept two thousand in cash, hidden in his freezer behind frozen vegetables. The rest, thirty-five thousand, he put back in the suitcase.
That night at work, room 412 was empty. Already cleaned and waiting for the next patient. Tomás stood in the doorway for a moment, then continued his route.
On his night off, he drove to Hamtramck. The hole he'd dug was still there, partially filled in by wind and animals. He dug it out again, deeper this time. Five feet. Then placed the suitcase at the bottom.
As he filled in the hole, he thought about Stan and Helen burying it together all those years ago. Two people with a secret. He patted the earth down firmly, spread leaves and debris over the spot.
Driving home, he thought about telling Patricia. Maybe someday. Or maybe not. Some secrets were better kept. Like Stan said, something that was just yours.
But then again, Stan had told him. Maybe that's what secrets were for—not the keeping, but the telling. The right person at the right time.
His phone buzzed. A text from Patricia. "Coffee tomorrow?"
He texted back. "Yes."
The money was in the ground. It would stay there until someone needed it. Maybe that would be him. Maybe Patricia's daughter, if things went that way. Maybe someone he hadn't met yet.
Or maybe it would stay there forever, forty thousand dollars slowly rotting in a suitcase, while above ground people lived their lives, fell in love, had children, grew old, died. The money meaning nothing and everything at the same time.
Tomás parked outside his building. Climbed the five flights. Made dinner—rice and beans and chicken. Watched the news without really watching. Thought about Stan. Thought about Patricia. Thought about his nephew Miguel, who would have his surgery and play soccer again.
Around midnight, his phone rang. His sister.
"Tomás, the money came through. How did you—"
"Extra shifts. Some overtime."
"Miguel is so happy. He says thank you, Tío."
"Tell him he's welcome."
"Are you okay? You sound different."
"I'm good. Just tired."
"You work too hard."
"Maybe. But things might change soon."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you later. When I know more."
After they hung up, Tomás sat in his dark apartment, city lights glowing through the window. Tomorrow he would have coffee with Patricia. Tomorrow night he would push his cart down the hospital hallways. Tomorrow the sun would rise and set and rise again.
The money was in the ground. Safe. Waiting.
Like all buried things, it would either be found or forgotten. Both possibilities seemed equally likely and equally unimportant. What mattered was that it existed. That Stan had trusted him with it. That he had decided what to do and done it.
Tomás went to bed thinking about Patricia's laugh. The way she'd stirred sugar into her coffee, counterclockwise, three times. Small things. But then most of life was small things.
The big things—love, death, forty thousand dollars buried in the ground—they happened rarely. And when they did, you either recognized them or you didn't. You either dug them up or you buried them deeper.
Or sometimes, like Tomás, you did both.