The point wasn’t to reverse every choice.
It was to stop treating kindness like debt.
We went through the map together.
Mr. T had been Jeremy’s barber.
After Jeremy died, he cut Evan’s hair free for almost a year.
“Dad would’ve wanted to pay him.”
“Maybe.”
I pointed at another circle.
“What about this?”
Evan hesitated.
“The grocery store.”
I remembered.
During the worst months after Jeremy’s death, one of the cashiers quietly gave me gift cards several times.
I had assumed they came from some store program.
Apparently, Evan eventually learned otherwise.
Then another address.
Then another.
Every circle carried a memory.
Some I had forgotten.
Evan hadn’t.
That was when I realized something else.
This had not only been about responsibility.
It had been his way of staying close to Jeremy.
Every person on the map was connected to his father.
Every debt gave Evan another reason to keep walking through that year.
