“Every dollar.”
Evan reached for the envelope.
I stopped him.
“No.”
His eyes flashed.
“It’s not yours.”
“Actually, sweetheart, this particular debt was supposedly mine before you were old enough to shave.”
The owner smiled.
Evan didn’t.
“We needed those tires.”
“I know.”
“So we owed him.”
“No.”
I softened my voice.
“I owed him.”
Evan frowned.
I unfolded the bus map again.
The tire shop.
The barber.
The grocery store.
A street near Evan’s old elementary school.
Different people.
Different places.
Different amounts.
And suddenly, I wasn’t asking where his money had gone.
I was asking who he believed he owed.
“How do you even remember all of this?”
Evan stared at the map.
Then he said four words that stopped me cold.
“Dad would’ve remembered.”
The tire shop owner looked away.
I lowered the map.
“What does your father have to do with this?”
