Numbers one through seventeen.
I looked at Lily.
She went very still.
“You wrote these?”
“Yeah.”
“Seventeen people?”
She nodded.
“This summer.”
I looked at Michael’s sixteen names on the front.
Then at Lily’s seventeen numbers on the back.
She hadn’t added herself to her father’s list.
She had started her own.
Lily looked toward Mrs. Patel.
Mrs. Patel nodded toward the front entrance.
“She’s at work.”
I stood.
“Who?”
Lily shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.
“Mom, before we go, there’s something else.”
I waited.
“The seventeen names aren’t the whole story.”
“What does that mean?”
Her eyes filled again.
“It means I found seventeen Fridays of my own.”
Mrs. Patel grabbed her keys.
“Come with me.”
She drove us across town.
The person Lily wanted me to meet was a nineteen-year-old girl named Tara.
She was halfway through her first week working at an auto-repair shop.
When Lily entered, Tara smiled.
“Car day?”
Lily stopped.
“Not yet.”
Tara looked at me.
Then back at Lily.
Her smile disappeared.
“No.”
Lily looked down.
Tara stepped closer.
“Tell me you didn’t use your car money.”
Silence.
Then Tara started crying.
