Then the owner recognized me.
“Lindsay?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“Oh, kid.”
Evan spoke fast.
“I told you not to tell her.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re about to.”
The owner came around the counter.
“Lindsay, a few months ago, Evan came in here carrying an envelope with one hundred and eighty dollars.”
I looked at my son.
The owner continued.
“He told me he owed me for a tire.”
I stared at him.
“The tire from three years ago?”
“That one.”
My voice sharpened.
“You took money from a thirteen-year-old?”
The man’s face turned red.
“Not at first.”
Evan muttered:
“He argued with me for like twenty minutes.”
“Because I was about thirty seconds from calling your mother.”
“You said I was annoying customers.”
“You were annoying me.”
I raised a hand.
“What happened?”
The owner sighed.
“He refused to leave.”
Then he opened a drawer beneath the register.
“He kept saying his family owed me.”
From the drawer, he removed a worn white envelope.
Written across the front in Evan’s handwriting were two words.
FOR TIRES.
My throat tightened.
“You kept it?”
“Every dollar.”
Evan reached for the envelope.
I stopped him.
“No.”
His eyes flashed.
“It’s not yours.”
“Actually, sweetheart, this particular debt was supposedly mine before you were old enough to shave.”
The owner smiled.
Evan didn’t.
“We needed those tires.”
“I know.”
“So we owed him.”
