Eating peanut butter crackers while I counted inventory.
He used to say.
“When I’m big, I’m going to work with you.”
Then he became a teenager.
He hated the stores.
He said they smelled like cardboard and onions.
He wanted finance.
Then marketing.
Then technology sales.
I encouraged him.
I paid for college.
Not fully.
He had scholarships.
I covered the rest.
He never knew the check came from a business account large enough to pay tuition for a hundred students.
Maybe that had been my mistake.
Maybe secrecy creates blindness.
Still, kindness should not require a financial statement.
Two weeks after I moved in, Vanessa reminded me about rent.
“First is Monday.”
“I know.”
“You’ll transfer two thousand?”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Good.”
On the first, I sent the money.
Exactly two thousand.
She texted.
Received.
No thank you.
No surprise.
Nothing.
That evening, she complained that the backyard grass looked dry.
