I lined the pieces up, and my frightened mind arranged them into a picture that made me sick.

What if someone older had gotten my grieving, fatherless boy involved in something?

What if the diner job was a cover, or only part of the story?

What if the extra cash was not his at all, but someone else’s, that he was holding, or moving, or being made to carry?

What if my thirteen-year-old had gotten himself tangled in something dangerous, something with older boys and cash and secrecy and violence, and was too frightened, or too ashamed, to tell me?

I hated myself for thinking it.