“Nolan,” I said. “I want to tell you what’s actually happening, and then I want to tell you what your job is.”

So I told him. All of it, in the version a ten-year-old gets: the sentence in the file, the lawyer above the zipper shop, the man who couldn’t remember my name.

And then I told him about the money and the clause, and I asked him what he thought, because he was going to find out anyway, and I’d rather he found out from me than from the driveway.

He was quiet for a long time.

“If you take the money,” he said, “does the file still say you stole?”

“Somewhere, probably. Not where it can hurt me.”