The uncounted.
Hundreds of them, all in one room, all finally visible, all there to say goodbye to the man who had seen them.
I understood then what Samuel wanted me to see.
He wanted me to know that the ten dollars hadn’t stopped with him.
It had become a river.
A woman about my age found me near the memorial flowers and took both my hands.
“You’re her,” she said, her eyes shining. “You’re the girl with the twins. He told me about you once. I asked him what made him start giving everything away, and he said a child with nothing taught him that the cheapest thing in the world and the most expensive thing in the world are the exact same thing.” She squeezed my hands. “He said it was being seen.”
I had to step outside myself for a moment just to stay standing.
Twenty-seven years I had carried that night as a small private shame, the stupid night I gave away my bus fare.
