“He hasn’t stopped looking at his feet since Carl paid the clerk,” Grace said, her voice soft and warm in the cooling air.

“It’s good to see him smile like that.”

“He needed those shoes three weeks ago,” I said.

My phone chimed in my lap with a low alert tone, signaling a new email.

I tapped the screen and opened an attachment that had just been sent to my primary email address.

It was a detailed hotel reservation confirmation forwarded directly from the front desk manager at the Grand Oak Resort.

The document showed an itemized list of charges under my primary account name: three luxury executive suites for three nights, eight premium spa package passes, and a reserved table for six in the resort’s private dining room.