And then, faintly, from beneath the weight of whatever they had given him, his fingers stirred against my wrist, and closed, weakly but unmistakably, in the smallest possible squeeze.

He had heard me.

He had heard every word, and he had answered the only way he could.

In that moment, holding the cold hand of a man I had known for a single day, I understood that I had just stepped into something far more dangerous than the loss of a job, something that could cost me a great deal more than a roof over my son’s head.

And I understood, too, that I was going to do it anyway.