Mom’s Letter
At breakfast, Mr. Howard pushed away his toast.
“Too soft.”
“It’s almost charcoal.”
“Almost is the problem, son.”
I turned toward the toaster, but he tapped his cane against the floor.
“Kevin. Come upstairs.”
He waited behind his study desk while I closed the door.
“Anything you need to tell me?”
The safe was shut now.
I stared at its brass dial.
“I stole from you, sir. Eight thousand dollars. I put it all back this morning.”
Mr. Howard’s hands remained folded over his cane.
“Does returning it make the theft disappear?”
“No.”
“Why did you take it?”
“Mom needs treatment. I thought I could fix it myself.”
One finger tapped the cane’s handle.
“That’s what you thought the first time too, isn’t it?”
I nodded, then remembered he might not see the movement.
“Yes, sir. I’ll pack whenever you tell me.”
“Look at me, boy.”
His pale eyes settled on my face with more accuracy than usual.
“My treatments are working. Not enough to read, but enough to make out a familiar shape against the light. Last night, I saw you cross the hall toward my safe. This morning, I saw you go back.”
I gripped the back of the chair in front of me.
“You saw me?”
“Enough. Don’t confuse poor eyesight with stupidity.”
He opened a desk drawer.
“But that isn’t why I called you here.”
He pushed a thick envelope across the desk.
“Open it, son.”
I expected dismissal papers.
Instead, I found a handwritten letter.
The capital K in my name had a crooked lower stroke because Mom always pressed too hard with her pen.
Dear Mr. Howard,
Please don’t let my son spend the rest of his life believing he is only the worst thing he’s ever done.
I lowered myself into the chair.
Kevin thinks he has to save me.
He’s thought that since he was little.
Once he brought me a broken toy truck, and another time he brought me a bird he’d found beneath our porch.
I fixed the truck. I couldn’t save the bird. He cried because he thought he hadn’t tried hard enough.
I remembered wrapping that bird in a dish towel.
Mom had buried it beneath the lilac bush while I stood beside her with a yellow plastic shovel.
He still believes every loss is something he should have prevented.
I know he has made terrible mistakes.
Please don’t protect him from their consequences.
But if you still see something good in him, don’t let him forget it is there.
The final paragraph blurred.
I wiped my eyes and tried again.
He told me you called him son.
I haven’t heard him sound that happy in years.
Thank you for giving him work and letting him feel useful without making him feel ashamed.
Please remind him that I loved him before he earned a paycheck, and I will love him even if there comes a day when he cannot save me.
With gratitude,
Evelyn
The letter slipped onto the desk.
“Sir, how did you get this?”
Mr. Howard gave me one word.
“Margaret.”
I remembered Mom asking for an envelope, and Margaret offering to bring my sweater home from the hospital.
She must have carried the letter back with her.
Mom had reached out to the one person who’d given me a chance when nobody else would.
My legs folded beneath me.
I landed on the rug and covered my face, crying harder than I had in the prison visiting room, harder than I had in Mr. Howard’s hallway.
Something soft dropped beside my knee.
“Use the handkerchief,” he grumbled. “You’re dripping on Eleanor’s rug.”
I wiped my face and waited for him to fire me.
“Your mother asked me to tell you the truth,” he said. “You stole from me. Returning the money does not erase that.”
May you like
“I know.”
“But you did return. Now we decide what you do with that choice.”
