The coffee cans multiplied. One became three. Three became five. Five became eight, all carefully labeled and hidden in my closet like treasure.
Deacon made the high school basketball team his sophomore year. He was fast and smart and good enough to let himself dream about college scholarships, about escaping the neighborhood, about becoming something bigger than his circumstances. I went to every single game, sat in the bleachers with my thermos of coffee and my exhausted body, and cheered until my voice gave out and my damaged lungs ached.
The scholarship never came. His grades were solid but not spectacular. His game was strong but not exceptional. After his last game of senior year, I went home, pulled every coffee can from my closet, and counted the contents on my kitchen table.
Seventeen thousand three hundred forty-two dollars.
Seventeen years of sacrifice condensed into stacks of wrinkled bills and rolls of coins. Seventeen years of skipped meals and broken shoes and heat turned down to fifty-eight degrees in winter. Seventeen years of choosing between things I needed and things Deacon needed, and always—always—choosing Deacon.
