Spare Change

First payback—coins to me.

I figured I miscounted.

By the door: a ceramic bowl—keys, coins—a grown-up junk drawer.

Pennies, dimes, and one stray token from a laundromat that quit before my lease did. I dump pockets there at night so tomorrow I don’t swear at a washing machine with hands full. Practical. Ugly. Normal.

That morning, the bowl had more.

Not by much. Just three extra nickels I didn’t remember owning, stacked like a tiny wedding cake beside my spare key. I shrugged, blamed my future self from last week, and bought a coffee that tasted like a promise someone else made.

At lunch, my jacket coughed up a quarter with a date that didn’t exist—20—, and then a scratch where the last two numbers should be. Someone had tried to finish the year and given up. The coin felt warm, like it had opinions.

I didn’t tell anyone, because there’s no satisfying way to say, “My money is breeding.”

At home, the bowl looked… busy. A penny lay on its back, Lincoln staring at the ceiling like he’d lost a bet. Under him, a torn receipt I hadn’t seen in months. The handwriting was mine; the note was not: WISHES PAY INTEREST. —Nana.

The bowl had originally been hers. She used it for bingo chips and paper clips, and folded prayers. When she died, I took it because grief makes you grab containers. The note must’ve been stuck to the felt bottom. Or maybe it hadn’t. Nana liked a small miracle the way some people like salt.

“Okay,” I said to the bowl. “I get it. Cute.”

A dime rolled a centimeter closer to me and stopped.

I don’t make big wishes anymore. Big wishes bully you into forgetting the small ones. Couch edge; stale coffee; Nana’s handwriting watching.

A small wish was made.

“I want the bus on time tomorrow. No drama. Just—on time.”

One penny was paid into the bowl.

I feel ridiculous.

Phone face down—pretend fooled—I go to bed.

8:12 a.m.—on the dot.

Doors open; driver yawns; universe refuses to wink. I almost missed it because I was busy marveling at nothing happening. That’s the thing about wishes: when they work, they’re boring. You get what you wanted, not confetti.

At lunch, I checked the bowl. One more nickel. A thin Canadian penny I couldn’t spend. And a note I hadn’t written: 7 minutes of patience next time. Nana’s slanted script, leaning into the wind.

“Interest,” I said, feeling exactly as stupid as you think and a little bit lucky. “You pay a penny, you get patience with change.”

I could have stopped there. I didn’t.

A week of small wishes. Teeth-level stuff. Let the meeting end early. Let the downstairs neighbor fix his drum phase. Let Mom text first because I don’t have the tone for “hey” today. Each time I dropped a penny or a dime in the bowl, I got what I’d asked for plus something around the edges. The neighbor’s kit migrated to a rehearsal space. Mom sent a voice memo where she laughed before she spoke. The meeting ended early, and nobody spun it as a moral victory. The bowl grew heavier. The notes multiplied.

-one honest sentence

- two deep breaths

- a seat by the window

-remembered password

Interest, compounded in kindness.

Then I got greedy.

Not “win the lottery” greedy—just “let me skip the awkward part” greedy. There was a conversation I owed my friend Tasha, the kind that snags on pride. I owed her an apology, and I wanted it done without the part where my chest felt like a room with bad air.

“I wish she texted first,” I told the bowl. I fed it a quarter because guilt makes you tip.

The bowl didn’t move. The note that appeared said, "Principal denied." Interest pending.

“Excuse me?” I said to Clay.

The next day, I didn’t get the text. I did get a free pastry, a seat on a crowded train, and three people who held doors without making me feel like a thief. The bowl paid interest. It refused the loan.

I caved. I called Tasha. I apologized with all the awkward air in my chest, and she said the line that makes adulthood possible: “Thank you. Same here.” When I got home, the bowl had a little pile of coins that added up to exactly bus fare for two and a note: +coffee together.

It wasn’t magic as in “abracadabra.” It was magic, as in “look at your ledger.”

The rules wrote themselves. Small wish, small coin. Big wish: either a laugh or a bill. The currency wasn’t money; it was nerve. Pay what you can name, and the bowl compounds it into something you’ll use later. Pay what you’re avoiding, and it’ll sit there until you do the work.

When I tried to cheat—like the time I tossed in a dollar and wished rent would drop—the bowl spat back a lone washer and +one item sold. That weekend, I finally listed the guitar I kept for personality and not for playing, and the buyer paid cash plus a compliment that made me miss it less.

Sometimes the interest arrived sideways. I wished for a sunny Saturday; it rained. The bowl gave me an umbrella, a wet-street smell, and a call to your brother. We talked for an hour while the storm tried to retell itself. I didn’t get sun. I got the weather that mattered.

Nana escalated once. I say Nana because who else writes in your house when you live alone? I wished—quietly, like a secret I might deny—for a message from the person I used to love. Not to fix anything. Just to prove I hadn’t invented us.

I dropped a penny, then another, then three, like an arcade game that eats hope. The bowl stayed still so long I almost took the coins back.

When the note appeared, it wasn’t in her handwriting. It was mine. You don’t need proof. You want company. Different wish. Different coin.

I went for a walk instead. I bought a plant I’ve kept alive through inattention and two winters. Interest showed up as a name for the plant I won’t admit, and one future laugh in the produce aisle when I saw someone else whisper to a basil.

The only time the bowl scared me was the day it asked first.

The rent went up. Work went weird. I came home late and dropped my backpack the way a person drops a subject. The bowl was light. The note inside was simple: Pay courage.

“I’m out,” I told it. “Try again next month.”

Another note: Pay what you have. Under it, two dimes I didn’t remember and a button from a coat I hadn’t owned in years.

I paid what I had. I made two calls I’d been avoiding—one to my landlord (where I asked, respectfully, for grace on a timeline) and one to a friend (where I asked, honestly, for help looking). I still hate asking. The bowl rustled and turned two dimes into a subway card with three rides on it and a listing you actually like.

I didn’t move this time. The landlord gave me ten days. Work un-weirded when someone else said the thing I needed to say, and I backed them up. The bowl didn’t fix my life. It adjusted the math.

I keep a roll of pennies now. I drop one when I want the bus to come, and my temper not to. I drop two when I need patience in line and out loud. I go bigger when the wish is for somebody else. The interest is generous when I stop pretending I’m the only account holder.

On the day I found a kid fishing coins from the fountain in the park, I didn’t scold. I gave him three quarters and said, “Invest.” He blinked, made a face like he’d try that sentence on later, and then he did the thing that matters: he made a wish and smiled like no one saw.

Sometimes I think about emptying the bowl to zero and starting over. Then I remember Nana’s handwriting, and I leave a penny for her. One story worth telling, it says sometimes, like the bowl knows when a paragraph has a pulse.

If you come over, you’ll see a very average dish by my door with coins that don’t add up until they do. You’ll hear me talking to Clay. You’ll think, Ah, she lost it gently. Maybe I did. Or maybe I just learned my money’s better at math than my fear is.

Either way, if you’ve got a small wish you’re brave enough to name, the bowl’s open.

Just pay what you can. The interest is where the magic hides.