Marta slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and ran her fingers around the edges of the scratch-off lottery ticket. Her talisman. Her hope. She’d swung by the food mart where Joy had sold it to her on the sly since Marta wasn’t anywhere near eighteen.

“How’s your Gram?” Joy idled behind the counter, shifted her weight to her left side. That meant her back hurt. Before long, she’d shift the other way to give her left a rest. Something always hurt with Joy. Seemed like she fixed one thing and another popped up.

“Gram’s doin’ fine.”

Joy sighed. “Good to hear.”

Both Joy and Gram suffered from chronic back pain that resisted remedy. Both might have been better off if they had had health insurance to pay for specialists.

Joy peered out the window at Gram sitting on the passenger side of the beat-up Ford Fiesta. “She’s lucky to have you.”

Back in the car, Schrödinger leapt onto Marta’s seat back, slid in between her neck and the headrest, and draped himself across her shoulders. She’d named her cat for a scientist who’d pointed out that if you don’t know whether a cat is dead or alive, it’s okay to think of it as both. She liked that—in the absence of resolution, hope lives forever.

With warm fur against her neck, she pulled out into traffic, left hand on top of the wheel, right hand in her pocket, loose around the scratcher. She’d splurged for a big one, a hundred-thousand-dollar maximum prize, stepping up from her usual low-end choices.

She and Gram got by on Gram’s social security and Marta’s minimum wage after-school-and-Saturdays job. Gram was a cheerful sort, made the best of things. She’d given Marta the book about Schrödinger the scientist. Said with Marta’s mind, she could be a professor like Gram had wanted to be. Marta knew what college cost, knew Gram was a half-step from needing sheltered care, knew what that cost, too. She exhausted herself managing their money, getting the bills paid, worrying about the future. She tightened her hand around the scratcher.

“You’re doing fine, Dear, but both hands on the steering wheel.” Gram, riding shotgun, could be counted on for unpredictable minute-by-minute commentary. “Watch out for that car …”

Marta kept just under the speed limit, tight in the middle of her lane. Lots of space left for daydreaming about her scratcher. What if it made her rich? Whenever they needed anything, she could take out some cash and buy whatever it was. Money could help her get somewhere. Maybe she could be a professor, like Gram said. Maybe be a lawyer, an architect, a secret agent. Until she scratched to see the amount, anything was possible.

Gram didn’t like that Marta had bought the scratcher. “Plain gambling, waste of money, they shouldn’t sell those to teenagers, adults either but surely not young people.”

Marta didn’t answer back, just kept on driving. At sixteen, she cherished this taste of freedom, even though the car was Gram’s and not hers. If she won a scratcher, she could have her own car, walk out the door whenever she wanted, get in her car, drive off.

Back home, Marta carried Schrödinger upstairs to her room and placed him on his favorite chair. He hopped down to watch her pull the wooden box out from under her bed, unlock the lid and lift it. In the absence of resolution, hope lives forever. She pulled out the stack of scratchers, each still untouched, each holding its unique promise, and carefully placed her new scratcher on top.