There are many ways to arrange money. Pennies become nickels, nickels dimes, and so
forth. Or one can care only about size, starting with dimes and ending with quarters—half dollars, if you have them. That spring I usually began on the left using coins tarnished with the patina that makes pennies as green as though they were abandoned in the forest to grow—which, really, they had been, abandoned in someone’s pocket or the deepest cavity of a register. The coins increased by shininess until the one on the far right, no matter its value, could cause temporary blindness.

One Thursday I learned about vinegar solutions in school, and then I cleaned all my coins so that I could no longer arrange them based on quality. I told the teacher about my experiment on Friday. She looked at me, her glasses sparkling like a newly minted dime, and said, “I’m glad you tried it at home.”

“I make artwork,” I told her, “with the money. I can make spare change imitate the Mona
Lisa, not because it looks similar, but because it captures the same meaning.”

She nodded, waiting for me to continue, and I wanted to tell her more, but her smile had
dropped by the slightest of degrees. I understood by now that people didn’t usually share my affinity for currency. “Maybe you’ll grow up to be a broker. Just be careful it doesn’t turn into an obsession,” she said.

I wanted to tell her that it didn’t make sense how other people could spend money
without appreciating its beauty. Why not put a dollar bill with two dimes on each side and a petal-arrangement of quarters onto a canvas? I wanted to tell her that people were dense and primitive every time they used their savings. What good was the aesthetic magnificence if you gave it to other people? But Mrs. Louis wouldn’t understand. Only my mother understood, and usually her mind was on other things.

When I got home from school that day, I went to my room and examined the treasure on
my bed. Eighteen dollars and twenty-three cents. My heart developed a flutter whenever people rounded to the nearest dollar. They acted as though the change, the decimal points, the left-over sum, were unimportant. Every cent is another cent to your name. And I had eighteen dollars and twenty-three cents to my name.
There was one ten-dollar bill, one five, three ones, a dime, two nickels, and three pennies. The Hamilton had a tear in its left corner, and the paper drooped around the edges like a misshapen flower. The five was so perfectly rectangular that I imagined an architect could use it on blueprints. Each of the one-dollars had its imperfections, but all passed into mainstream currency without drawing attention to itself.

Money wasn’t an obsession; it was a passion. If Van Gough was obsessed with painting,
yes, I suppose Mrs. Louis was right about me.

When the winter sunlight turned to shades of amber and drooped low against the walls, I
abandoned the artwork and looked in the pantry for something to stop the bright magma feeling in my stomach. A single box of oatmeal gave the bad news in its precise black lettering: it had expired two months ago.

Mom came home while I was staring at the box. She put down her purse and looked at the oatmeal herself.

“You wouldn’t want plain oatmeal anyway,” she said, the faintest trace of a smile
appearing on her face. “You’d do better putting honey on cardboard.”

“Did you go to the store?” I asked.

Her eyes slipped from the box to the floor. “My paycheck doesn’t come until tomorrow.
I’m sorry, sweetie. I bet the neighbors have something they could lend us, right? You stay here and I’ll go check.”
I watched from the window as she knocked on doors. This would make the twenty-eighth
time our neighbors helped us with food or bills, if they answered. I loved seeing the cash she came home with, currency that had changed many hands before it came to hers. Mom always acted as though it were cursed, and she didn’t like to look at it for very long. If she did, her face blossomed to crimson and a shallow reservoir of tears formed below her eyes. I kept watching until she knocked on the third door, still without an answer.

I held my phone and dialed my father’s number—I had changed his contact from “Dad” to “Michael Kurtz.”

“Jason?” he said on the third ring. “Hey, son. How are you? Is school okay?”

“School’s okay.”

“Can you believe how cold it’s been? I’ve had to put away all my summer clothes. I think
I’m coming down with a cold.”

My throat ached as all sensation of moisture evaporated. “Listen, Dad, there’s something
I wanted to ask.”
“Of course. You can always ask me anything.”

“We need a little extra money. Do you think…maybe you could give us some money? Or
bring by some food?”

There was a brief silence. “I’m sorry, Jason. Things are tight.”

“Tight?” I repeated. I often fantasized about his income, imagining entire museums filled
with his many thousands upon the walls. “But you’re a psychiatrist. You told me you make—”

“That’s inappropriate. You shouldn’t know my salary.” He cleared his throat. “You’re
being selfish. I give you so much.” The words reverberated through the line for emphasis. “What happens with your mother isn’t my concern. She should’ve figured this out. Goodbye, son.”

My eyes drifted from the screen to the window, where my mom was on the last house of
our cul-de-sac without any food in her hands. When she came back, she opened the door slowly, like something was on the other side pushing with all its strength against her. Her eyes were puffy and tinted scarlet.

“Maybe that oatmeal isn’t so bad,” she said. “They could have gotten the expiration
wrong…”

“I have eighteen dollars and twenty-three cents,” I blurted.

Mom frowned. “No, Jason. I couldn’t ask you for that. It’s your money.”

My mind ran through all the artwork that was yet to be created with my savings. Every
ounce of metal and paper to my name had a deep, intrinsic beauty that few others could
appreciate, if any. “I don’t want expired oatmeal,” I said. “We…we have to eat something until you get your paycheck tomorrow.”

“This isn’t fair to you.”

“I don’t want to be selfish. Take it.”

“Selfish?” She turned her head, eying me sideways. “Who put that idea in your head?”

Without answering, I went to my room and carried back the money, feeling its weight for
what I knew would be the last time. I wanted to give each of the coins and bills a proper
goodbye, a tribute to their grandeur, a passing of the torch, but there was no time. With gentle hesitation, I poured the money into Mom’s hands.

That night I went to bed without hunger.

Brandon Schettler