At my wedding, my grandfather handed me an old savings book. My father snatched it from my hands, saying, “That bank closed in the 80s. It’s lost.” My grandfather died shortly after. I went to the bank anyway. The manager looked through the files, glanced up at me, and said, “Sir, perhaps you should sit down…”

The cashier’s hands froze on the keyboard. She looked at her screen, then at me, then back at the screen. Her face had turned ashen.

“Sir,” she said in a barely audible voice, “I need to call my manager.”

Sitting on the plastic chair, I held my grandfather’s old savings book in my hands. The very same book my father had snatched from me five years earlier, at my wedding. The same book everyone had laughed at, the very book I had kept in my bedside table drawer for five years, unable to bring myself to throw away the last gift my grandfather had ever given me.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“No, sir. There’s nothing wrong. I… I need to see my manager. Please wait here.”

She practically ran to the back of the bank. I glanced again at the savings book. It was old, yellowed, the cover worn from decades of handling. “First Cleveland Savings and Loan” was printed in faded blue letters across the front, a bank that hadn’t existed under that name since 1987. Inside, the first entry was dated March 15, 1971: a deposit of $8,000. My grandfather’s handwriting, neat and precise, in the space reserved for customers to record their own transactions. My father had said that book was worthless. My mother had told me not to make a fool of myself. My brother had laughed and said there must be fifty cents in the account, if it even still existed. But I had come anyway, because my grandfather had asked me to. Because twelve years of Sunday visits had taught me to trust him. Because the look he gave me when he handed me that booklet at my wedding wasn’t that of a senile old man. It was the look of someone offering a treasure. I should have come sooner, but life catches up with us and doubt creeps in. And when everyone we know tells us something is worthless, we end up believing them. I wish I hadn’t.

The manager appeared from behind, a middle-aged woman in a gray suit, wearing a badge that read “Patricia Holloway, Agency Director.” She was followed by an older man in a more elegant suit. He looked as if he had been interrupted in the middle of an important task.

“Mr. Mercer?” Patricia asked, approaching my chair. “I’m Patricia Holloway. This is David Chun, our regional director. He was visiting our office today.”

“Is there a problem with the account?”

Patricia and David exchanged a glance. Then David pulled up a chair and sat down opposite me.

“Mr. Mercer, there’s no problem at all. Quite the opposite.”

He glanced at the savings book I was holding in my hands.

“This account has been active since 1971. It was opened at First Cleveland Savings and Loan, which was acquired by Ohio National in 1987, then by United Midwest in 2003, and finally by us, National Ohio Bank, in 2015. Despite all these acquisitions, the account has remained active.”

“Still in operation? My father used to say it should have closed decades ago.”

“Normally, yes. Inactive accounts are usually closed after a certain period of inactivity, but this account has never been inactive.”