“Almost there,” he said again.
I went back to bed and lay awake a long time, feeling a storm coming that I couldn’t name yet.
The torn jacket
A few weeks later, he was two hours late coming home from the diner. His phone went straight to voicemail. By the time the back door finally opened near eight o’clock, I’d worked myself into a full panic — and then I saw him and my heart actually stopped.
His sneakers were caked in mud. His good jacket was torn at the shoulder seam, hanging loose. A raw scrape ran along the side of his face.
“Evan! What happened to you?”
“Nothing. I fell. By the creek, on the way home.” He wouldn’t look at me, already sliding past toward the stairs.
“You fell? How do you tear a jacket falling?”
“It’s not a big deal, Mom.”
A fall gives you a scraped knee, a dirty palm — not a torn sleeve and a gash on your face. This looked like a struggle. And then I asked the question whose answer kept me up every night after.
“Where’s your paycheck?”
