Evan went very still. “I put it somewhere safe,” he said, and disappeared up the stairs to shower before I could ask what that meant.
I stood in the kitchen with my hand over my mouth, and a cold, ugly thought crept in that I hated myself for even having. What if my grieving, fatherless boy had gotten pulled into something dark — drugs, or worse — and “almost there” had been a story covering it the whole time? Boys with no father, boys trying to prove they were men. My Evan fit the picture, and I’d been too proud of the bike story to look hard enough.
I decided that night I’d sit him down and get the truth out of him.
I never got the chance. Two days later, his boss called.
For illustrative purposes only
“Everything that boy tells you about that money is a lie”
I was at work when an unknown number came through. “Is this Evan’s mother? My name’s Sal, I run the diner on Cherry Street. Ma’am, I need to talk to you about your son.”
My stomach clenched into a fist. “Did he do something wrong?”
A long silence. “I honestly don’t know how to answer that.” Another pause, and then: “Do you know what your son does with every paycheck?”
“He’s saving for a bike,” I said, my mouth going dry. “That’s what he’s been doing. Isn’t it?”
Sal exhaled slowly. “Ma’am, you should sit down. Everything that boy tells you about that money is a lie.”
The words went through me like cold water. The bike. The “almost there.” All of it. My careful, grown-up-too-fast boy, lying to my face for six months.
