Mr. Alvarez ignored him.
“You know how many paychecks he’s actually kept in six months?”
I waited.
“One,” he said.
For a moment, I thought I’d heard him wrong.
“One?”
Mr. Alvarez nodded.
“The first one.”
I turned toward Evan.
“Where did the others go?”
“Mom…”
“Where?”
He didn’t answer.
That silence worried me more than the overturned dishes.
Evan had wanted that used mountain bike for nearly a year. The first time he showed it to me, I’d offered to help pay.
“No. I want to earn it myself, Mom.”
At the time, I’d been proud of him.
Evan was 10 when we lost Jeremy. After that, he rarely asked me for anything.
The diner was small and family-owned. Mr. Alvarez knew us from the neighborhood, and once I discovered Evan was working there, I allowed him to continue because his Saturday shifts involved only bussing tables, light cleaning, and helping in the dishroom.
I looked around the diner.
“Where did the money go?”
Evan folded his arms.
“It’s mine.”
“Yes, it is. And you’re 13.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to know everything, Mom.”
“No, Sir. But when your boss calls me because you’re trying to hand an adult your entire paycheck and breaking dishes over it, privacy gets a little smaller.”
Then I noticed something near his feet.
His backpack had fallen open when the bus tub crashed.
Several envelopes had spilled out beside a folded city bus map.
I bent down.
Evan moved immediately.
“Mom, don’t…”
That only made me pick it up.
He completely froze.
I unfolded the map across the nearest table.
Red circles covered it.
Six, maybe seven.
Beside several circles were notes in Evan’s cramped handwriting.
TIRES
MR T
HAIRCUT
STORE LADY
One address had been crossed out three times and rewritten farther down the street.
Two circles had dollar amounts beside them.
$180.
