Then one night I walked past his bedroom and noticed light spilling out from under the door, which was open just a crack. I glanced in without meaning to pry.
Evan was sitting cross-legged on the floor, counting a thick stack of cash. It was far more money than six months of dishwashing wages should have added up to, even if he hadn't spent a cent of it.
The moment he saw me, his face changed completely. He swept the bills together, stuffed them into his backpack, and zipped it shut in one motion.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"Was that your bike money?"
He nodded a little too fast. "Yeah."
"That looked like a lot."
"Sal pays me in small bills," he said. "It just looks like more than it is."
Then he smiled at me — a nervous, too-quick smile. "I'm getting close, though."
I let it go. He was thirteen. He was allowed a little privacy, and I told myself firmly that there had to be a reasonable explanation, even if I couldn't think of one.
A few weeks later, that got a lot harder to believe.
Evan usually walked in from his shift around six in the evening. That Saturday, six came and went. Then six-thirty. Then seven. His phone went straight to voicemail every time I called. By the time I finally heard the back door open, it was almost eight o'clock, and I was standing in the hallway before he'd even taken his shoes off.
His sneakers were caked in mud. His jeans were filthy at the knees. One sleeve of his jacket was torn clean through, and there was a fresh, raw scrape along the side of his face.
"Evan! What happened to you?"
He wouldn't meet my eyes. "I fell."
"You fell where?"
"Down by the creek."
He tried to sidestep me and head for the stairs. I moved to block him.
"Your sleeve is torn. You're covered in mud. Where's the money you made today?"
He stopped walking. His eyes dropped to the floor.
"I put it somewhere safe."
"Somewhere safe where, Evan?"
"It's fine, Mom."
"What does that mean?"
He finally looked up at me, and for just a second I saw something underneath the deflection — something closer to fear than embarrassment. "Can I just take a shower, please?"
Then he was gone, up the stairs, and I was standing alone in the kitchen listening to the water run, letting my imagination do exactly what imaginations do at eleven o'clock at night when nothing adds up. The hidden cash. The torn clothes. The same three words — almost there — for six months running. Had someone older gotten him mixed up in something? Was the diner job even the whole story? Had my grieving, too-responsible thirteen-year-old gotten himself into something he was too scared to tell me about?
