I began, without admitting to myself why, to watch the moment the folder landed.

I watched the phones come out in that same instant, the same practiced glaze come over the same faces, the same little migration toward the restrooms begin.

It was not that they could not see the check.

It was that they had all learned, over years, that if they simply declined to see it for long enough, I would see it for them.

I was not the person who paid because no one else could.