He could so easily have stayed out of it, could have decided that whatever a thirteen-year-old dishwasher did with his money and his Saturdays was none of his concern, could have let the whole strange situation resolve itself without him.

Most people would have.

It is remarkable, when you think about it, how much of what saves us in this life comes down to some particular person deciding not to look away, deciding that a thing they could reasonably ignore is in fact their business because a child is involved and something is wrong.

Sal decided that.

He looked at a boy stitching his own torn shirt with a safety pin in his pantry, and instead of shrugging and going back to the grill, he stopped, and he asked, and he cared enough to pick up the phone and call a stranger.

Everything good that happened that day flowed from that one decision of an ordinary man not to look away.