The boy watched anxiously.
“Is that enough?”
I glanced toward the other bikers.
Nobody smiled.
Nobody made a joke.
Something about the child's seriousness told us that whatever he was asking wasn't ordinary.
I lowered my voice.
“Enough for what, little man?”
The boy swallowed.
Then he whispered a sentence I would remember for the rest of my life.
“Can you beat up my cancer?”
My coffee cup stopped halfway to my mouth.
Across the table, Ron's expression went completely blank.
The third biker slowly lowered his hands.
For several seconds, the only sounds in the diner came from the refrigerator behind the counter and an old ceiling fan turning above us.
The boy looked from one face to another.
He seemed confused by our silence.
“Mommy says it's a really bad monster,” he explained. “And the doctors keep trying to kill it, but it won't go away.”
His tiny fingers rested against the edge of the table.
“I saw your motorcycles outside. And you guys look really strong.”
He looked directly at me.
“Can you help them?”
Something inside my chest twisted so violently that I nearly couldn't breathe.
Eight years earlier, I had buried my seven-year-old daughter.
Her name was Sarah.
She had leukemia.
And until that moment, I had spent eight years doing everything possible to avoid remembering the sound of a sick child asking a question nobody could answer.
The boy mistook my silence for refusal.
His shoulders began to sink.
“I can get more money,” he whispered.
I looked at him.
He hurried to explain.
“I help Mommy put the clothes away. And sometimes our neighbor gives me quarters for feeding her cat. I can save up.”
His lower lip trembled.
“Please don't say no.”
I pushed my chair back.
The wooden legs scraped across the diner floor.
Several customers looked toward us.
I lowered myself carefully until I was kneeling in front of the little boy.
Up close, I could see how tired he looked.
There were faint circles beneath his eyes, and the hospital bracelet was loose enough to slide almost halfway down his forearm.
I had seen that kind of exhaustion before.
I had watched it settle over Sarah's face after difficult treatments.
I had watched her struggle to finish a bowl of soup.
I had watched her pretend she wasn't afraid because she didn't want her father to cry.
Now another child stood before me asking whether seven dollars and forty cents could purchase enough strength to defeat a disease.
I tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
The boy looked worried.