“Why?”
“Because it is.”
I looked at Mr. Alvarez.
“Can somebody please explain this?”
The diner owner leaned against the register.
“How much do you think Evan has saved toward the bike?”
The question caught me off guard.
“I don’t know.”
I glanced at my son.
“He keeps saying he’s almost there.”
Mr. Alvarez nodded.
“That’s what he tells us too.”
Evan’s face changed.
“Don’t.”
Mr. Alvarez ignored him.
“You know how many paychecks he’s actually kept in six months?”
I waited.
“One.”
I thought I’d misheard.
“One?”
“The first.”
I turned slowly toward Evan.
“Where did the rest go?”
“Mom.”
“Where?”
He looked away.
That silence frightened me more than the broken dishes.
Evan had wanted that bike for almost a year.
I could still remember him showing me the listing.
I had offered to help buy it.
He had refused.
“I want to earn it.”
Now I realized he had earned enough for it long ago.
Probably several times over.
Yet he had no bike.
And apparently almost no money.
I stepped closer.
“Tell me.”
“It is my money.”
“Yes.”
“And I can do what I want with it.”
“You are thirteen.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to know everything.”
Normally, I would have agreed that he deserved some privacy.
Not now.
“When your employer calls me because you’re fighting an adult over your entire paycheck, the privacy rules change.”
Then I noticed his backpack.
It had fallen open when the bus tub overturned.
