It was exactly the question she'd been asking herself.
She had spent years making sure Ethan understood that people worked hard for what they owned. She didn't want him growing up believing that someone else would always appear to solve his problems.
But she'd also tried to teach him that kindness was real.
And kindness sometimes arrived without a bill attached.
She looked toward the road.
“Sometimes people help because they remember what it feels like to need help.”
Ethan considered that.
“Did Mr. Marcus need help before?”
Sarah thought about the gray-bearded mechanic.
His enormous hands.
His quiet expression when Ethan explained where the money came from.
“I think maybe he did.”
For several minutes, the boy remained silent.
Then he asked, “Can we do something for him?”
Sarah glanced toward him.
“What kind of something?”
“I don't know.”
He looked toward the jar.
“Maybe we could buy him lunch.”
Sarah smiled sadly.
“We can think about that.”
Ethan nodded.
Then he leaned back against the seat and watched the houses pass.
His mother looked at him briefly.
He seemed younger than he had in the garage.
Not because anything about him had changed.
Because for one afternoon, someone else had carried a responsibility he'd been trying to shoulder alone.
Sarah wanted that feeling to last.
She wanted him to go home, finish his homework, complain about vegetables, and think about the school science fair.
She wanted him to be ten.
Not a miniature accountant calculating whether his mother could afford another missed shift.
When they reached their small rented duplex, Ethan carried the jar inside and placed it on his bedroom dresser.
Then he counted the money again.
Eighty-three dollars and fifteen cents.
He frowned.
A quarter was missing.
He searched the jar.
Checked the floor.
Looked in his hoodie pocket.
Then remembered placing the jar on Marcus's workbench.
For a moment, he felt upset.
He'd been so careful.
Three counts.
Exact amounts.
All the coins stacked in neat piles before he put them away.
Now the total was wrong.
He sat on his bed.
For several seconds, he stared at the jar.
Then he remembered Marcus looking at him and saying he was supposed to spend the money on something that made him happy.
Ethan smiled faintly.
Maybe twenty-five cents wasn't such a terrible price for learning that.
He put the jar back on the dresser.
Then went to help his mother prepare dinner.
At four-thirty the next morning, Sarah woke to her alarm.
For a few seconds, she lay still in the darkness.
She felt the familiar dread rise before she remembered that the car had been repaired.