“Are you mad?”
I looked at him for a long moment. “I’m shocked, baby,” I said. “But I am so proud of you. And yes—I’m also upset that you sold something that valuable without telling me first.”
He nodded quickly. “That’s fair.”
I held out my hand. “Come here.”
He crossed the room and folded into me—awkward, all elbows and thirteen years old. I wrapped my arms around him, feeling the last of my anger melt into something warmer… something deeper.
“You’re too much like your father,” I murmured.
He pulled back. “Is that good or bad?”
“Today? Inconvenient, expensive… and good.”
That made him laugh.
The next morning, he brought me a cup of tea and asked, “Can we go pick up the wheelchair?”
“It’s ready at the hospital, Mom,” he said. “And then can we drop it off at Emily’s house? It’s going to be a surprise because… I didn’t tell her.”
“What about her parents, honey? Won’t they be upset that you stepped in?” I asked, already slipping on my shoes.
“I don’t think they can be mad,” he said simply. “They couldn’t help her right now… so I did. I’m not blaming them. It’s just… she needed it.”
For illustrative purposes only
Emily opened the door in her old chair—and froze the moment she saw David.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, Em. I…”
She looked from him to the box, then back again. “What’s that?”
He glanced at me briefly, then back at her. “It’s a new wheelchair for you.”
Her mouth fell open. She looked like she might cry. “What?!”
Jillian, her mother, appeared behind her, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Emily, who’s—”
She stopped mid-sentence.
David set the box down so quickly he nearly dropped it. “Your old one was bad,” he rushed. “I mean—not bad bad—just… it wasn’t working right. And I found one, and I thought maybe…”
Emily’s eyes filled instantly.
“You bought me a wheelchair?” she whispered.
David looked embarrassed. “Yeah.”
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