Chapter 5 - Dad Would've RememberedMiles looked genuinely confused. I stared at the envelope, then unfolded the bus map again. Tire shop. Barber. Grocery store. A street near his old elementary school. People. Places. Dollar amounts.
For the first time, I wasn't wondering what Miles had spent his money on. I was wondering who he believed he owed.
"How do you even remember all this?"
He answered with four words that changed everything.
"Dad would've remembered."
I went still. The shop owner looked away. I lowered the map. "What does your father have to do with any of this?"
Miles grabbed his backpack. "Nothing."
This time I stepped in front of the door. "Miles."
"Move, Mom."
"No."
His eyes filled, and that scared me more than his anger. "Please, Mom."
"Tell me."
"I can't."
"Why?"
He roughly wiped his face with his sleeve, then looked at the map in my hand. At every circle. Every place connected to the worst year of our lives.
Finally, he whispered, "Because you're going to tell me to stop."
Looking at those circles again, I understood one thing. Whatever my son had been doing every Saturday, it had never really been about a bicycle. And somehow, it had begun with his father.
"Stop what?"
He looked at the floor. "Because Dad can't."
I stopped moving. He wiped his face again. "Everybody helped us after he died. Tires. Food. Rides. Haircuts." He glanced at the map. "Dad always said you pay people back."
I thought about the Saturday he'd come home late and covered in mud. "Where were you that evening?"
He rubbed one sneaker against the pavement. "Mrs. Donnelly's."
I recognized the name instantly. She'd lived two streets away when Gary died and had picked Miles up from school for months whenever I couldn't leave work.
"What happened to your shirt?"
May you like
"Her back fence fell over. I was helping her put it up."
That left me speechless.
