I pulled out another.
To the Whitakers. In 1981, my father asked your bank for a loan to open a restaurant. Every other bank in the county said no. They said nobody in Millbrook would eat Mexican food. Mr. Whitaker came to our house and ate my mother’s enchiladas and signed the papers at our kitchen table. Casa Ruiz has been open for 34 years. My son Tommy is going to take it over someday. God bless you. — Miguel Ruiz.
Tommy Ruiz. The security guard. Who’d looked at the floor.
I put the letters down.
“There are four hundred and twelve of these,” I said. “George counted. Before he died.”
Mr. Hale was looking at the shoebox. He didn’t say anything.
“This bank isn’t a number on your spreadsheet, Mr. Hale,” I said. “It’s the reason this town still exists. When the big banks pulled out in the eighties, we stayed. When everybody else said no, we said yes. We’re the reason Millbrook has a hair salon and a Mexican restaurant and forty family farms that would be corporate cornfields otherwise.”
