My son had spent six months paying, in the only currency he had, his labor and his time and his given-up desires, against a debt he thought was owed.

And here was a rough old diner owner telling him, in the language of a receipt, that the account was settled, that he owed nothing more, that the paying was over.

It was, I understood, exactly the right way to say it to a boy like Caleb, a boy who had turned everything into a ledger of what he owed his family.

Sal did not tell him to stop feeling responsible; that would not have reached him.