For a second, I thought I had misunderstood.
“Seventeen people?”
“Yeah.”
“What people?”
Lily stood.
“Come with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what happened.”
She grabbed her café hoodie from the counter and pulled it on.
“Please.”
I looked at Michael’s empty keychain beside my coffee.
Then at my daughter.
Twenty minutes later, we were walking toward the café where Lily had worked all summer.
Neither of us spoke much.
My mind was racing through every possible explanation.
Had coworkers pressured her?
Had some adult learned she had savings?
Had Lily decided that being generous meant giving money to anyone with a sad enough story?
She was sixteen.
At that age, kindness could be enormous and reckless at exactly the same time.
When we reached the café, Mrs. Patel was unlocking the front door.
She had owned the place for almost twenty years and hired Lily in June.
She looked at Lily.
Then at me.
Her smile disappeared.
“You told her?”
Lily nodded.
I stopped walking.
“You knew?”
Mrs. Patel slowly opened the door.
“Come inside, Rachel.”
That did nothing to improve my mood.
The café wasn’t open yet.
The chairs were still upside down on the tables.
The pastry case was empty.
Mrs. Patel led us behind the counter and into the cramped office where Lily usually counted her tips after work.
She opened a metal cabinet.
“Before you get angry with me,” she said, “I didn’t realize how far she was taking this until recently.”
“That sentence is not helping.”
“I know.”
She reached behind a box of receipt paper.
What she pulled out looked completely ordinary.
An old index card.
The corners were bent.
A coffee stain covered one edge.
Across the front were sixteen first names written in blue and black ink, each accompanied by a date.
Beside several of the names was a single word.
FRIDAY.
