Crumbs

Sharla removed the clear plastic lid from the container of Italian style panko breadcrumbs to find the foil seal along the rim to be opened half way. She had just bought it a few days ago and, knowing she had not opened it, concluded that someone in the store had.

She peeled back the seal to determine if someone tampered with the crumbs. Barely breaching the surface of the sea of Italian dust was a bluish-green node. Sharla swayed the can back and forth clearing the crumbs and revealing the folded face of a founding father. Benjamin Franklin was silenced by the rubber band pinched tightly across his lips.

Trying to avoid coating her hands in herbs, she burrowed only her index finger into the grain and hooked it under the note. Sliding the bill up the side of the canister, her thumb came down to assist with the extraction. Realizing the girth of the wad, Sharla let the bundle of bills bounce on the counter and reached for the can of crumbs. Seasoning the kitchen counter with the rest of the container, three more breaded bundles of cash revealed themselves.

Slipping off the rubber bands, she piled the money in her hand. Four stacks of 50 bills were folded in half, then half again. Sharla wasn’t one for math, but seeing so many hundreds made her heart race.

“Ma!” She squealed, unraveling the wads. “Ma! Get in here! Look what was in the panko!”

“In the panko?” Ma waddled in to have a look.

“Yes! Money! Lots of it!”

They counted it together, then Ma counted it twice more.

“What the hell is 20 Grand doing in the panko?” Ma whooped.

“Don’t question it! It’s a miracle!”

“A miracle? How ya going to make the meatballs without the breadcrumbs?”

“I’ll go back out. I’ll go buy all the panko that the Jewel has in stock.”

She did buy all the panko in stock, but fortunately for Sharla, Jewel only had four containers left. She would have spent all of the money on the damn breadcrumbs if she could have. Glorious surprises lead to impulsive decisions.

When Sharla got home, Ma was already on the phone with her sister. She was drawing up stories about how all of that money got in there.

“It had to have been a factory worker.” Ma’s eyebrows emphasized her speech.

“No single person working for a bread crumb company has that much money to spare.” Auntie’s voice was loud enough for Sharla to hear even though the phone was up to Ma’s ear.

“You’re right. Maybe it’s some kind of celebrity charity thing like they do with the Cheerios.” Nobody knew what Ma was talking about, but it didn’t really matter to Sharla. Regardless of what anyone said, she believed that Jesus himself had turned bread into ‘cash money’ and served it up at the kitchen counter.

“The rest of Dad’s medical bills,” Ma waved her hand back and forth, “We are free of it all.”

“We can finally pay to have pizza delivered instead of going to pick it up!” Sharla added.

“You are so right! Let’s try it tomorrow. You’re still working on those meatballs, right?”

Rolling the pink chuck between her palms, Sharla’s face ached from smiling.

What they didn’t know was that four days earlier, a woman wandered up and down the aisles at Jewel Osco before spotting the cans of panko breadcrumbs on a bottom shelf. She looked around and with no one in sight, she grabbed a jar, peeled the seal just enough, and shoved in her life’s savings. Then she shook up the crumbs, placed them back on the shelf, grabbed an unscented Chapstick, and headed for the check out.

Her name was Maria Rury. Sitting on the make-shift bed in her van, she pulled out her little black notebook and wrote:

I did it in the most random, confusing, detached way I could think of. I don’t care if it sits for three years in the back of a pantry only to be thrown out. I am free of it all.

It wasn’t all, but rather most. In the left breast pocket of her patched flannel was a billfold with the remaining $4,758. She kept it buttoned beside her heart for whatever came next.

Maybe I should have given it to NRDC or WWF. What if they track me down? It is a crime to meddle with food in the store. What if someone eats the crumbs and gets sick?

She put her notebook in the top flap of her 75 liter backpack and wrapped her blanket tightly around her. The sky beamed with blueish-green strands of light snaking overhead like a storm of electric kites. With the illumination of the auroras, she watched the wind season the pines of her new Alaskan home with loose grains of snow fresh off the mountains.

This was the furthest she had ever been from Chicago, but the most at home she had ever felt. Her concerns revolved around her choices, but no longer her duties. Maria was only 33 and, unlike Sharla, she was known for her analytical skills. She had spent the last ten years designing renewable energy systems for an electrical company in the city. Her loans were paid off and her lease had come to an end, so she quit her job, bought a van, and sought a life less refined.

It was Mid-April and Maria planned to stay in the wilderness until fall. She would spend the longest, sunniest days on the trails before driving to Anchorage in September. There, she would work to find solutions for the northernmost communities being consumed by the rising sea levels as the frigid water chewed away at what used to be permafrost.

In the morning, a bright beacon of warmth and hope outshined the glowing kites. After digging her notebook back out of her bag, she sat it loosely on her lap and wrote:

I hope a family finds it, or someone saving up to start a business. Maybe someone can pay off their debt, or start saving for their kid to go to college. Whoever it is, I hope they use it for something that makes them happy.

Happy wasn’t what Maria meant. Happy is temporary — the false promise to a nation. It is no more than the deceitful word choice of the forefathers. What Maria meant instead was fulfillment. Happiness is felt, but fulfillment is discovered. Once uncovered, it cannot be spent.

She packed up her last few things and layered on her warmest clothes. Before beginning the day’s hike, she sought out a warm meal at a diner. There, she sat alone at a table for four and couldn’t help but watch the morning’s national news on the TV in the corner.

As the waitress served Maria her eggs and toast, the news header read:

“Get that Bread: Women Finds $20,000 in a Container of Breadcrumbs”. There, on the 19 inch TV screen in the corner of a diner on the edge of the Alaskan wilderness, was Sharla’s smiling face.

The reporter spoke with generic enthusiasm, “Earlier this week, Sharla Adams found $20,000 in a container of panko breadcrumbs. She has come to us here at channel seven in hopes of finding out where it came from. Sharla, who do you think put the money in the can?”

“Probably an angel.” Sharla giggled.

A warmth blossomed from Maria’s heart sprouting what was the most sincere smile her face ever held. The waitress noticed Maria’s fixation and turned to see what was so pleasing.

“Wouldn’t that be something.” She smiled and furrowed her brow in confusion before scurrying off to the kitchen.

Maria continued to study Sharla’s face on the screen with a new found sense of affirmation of her life choices. When the broadcast cut to commercial, she tapped the corner of her toast on her plate to shake off the burnt crumbs before taking her first bite.