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.
To revisit places.
To repeat things Jeremy had said.
To imagine what his father would have done.
So I didn’t take the map away.
I didn’t tell him it was foolish.
Instead, we changed what it meant.
On the back, we wrote:
PEOPLE WHO HELPED US.
No dollar amounts.
No debts.
Just names.
