Four Seasons with Uncle Pidio

In the winter of my eighth year, Uncle Pidio pressed a nickel into my palm for every walnut I extracted, intact, from its shell.

When spring rolled around, he gave me the same each time I liberated a chocolate Easter egg from its foil wrapper; a dime if the foil remained whole.

That summer, I earned a quarter on Thursdays when I followed Uncle Pidio’s wife two blocks to a house where I saw her kissing a man through the window.

In the fall, Uncle Pidio was gone, no goodbye. I think of him every time I flip a coin.