He saw me at the kitchen table late at night with the calculator and the stack of envelopes.

He saw me cutting expenses, dropping small luxuries, learning to stretch one income where there had been two.

And somewhere in all of that watching, my ten-year-old made a decision that no ten-year-old should ever have to make, a decision I did not know he had made until years later.

He decided that he was not going to add to my burdens.

He decided that he would not ask me for anything expensive, anything that would put one more line on the spreadsheet, one more worry on my face.