“Evan, what on earth does ‘epic stuff 4 real’ mean?”
“It means exactly what it says, Mom.” He’d grin at me over his shoulder. “I’m saving valuable energy by not overthinking it.”
Then he’d click through two dozen blurry pictures and insist every single one was a masterpiece.
I hadn’t thought about his ridiculous folder names in decades. Now one of them was glowing on the screen in front of me.
I touched the monitor with two fingers, as if I could reach through it.
This hadn’t come from Julian. This had come from Evan.
I turned to the document instead. Its title was simple: “Mom, please read this part first.”
My heart started pounding before I even opened it.
The first line read: Margaret, I’ve owed you this for twenty-six years.
I had to sit back and breathe before I could keep going.
The next line: What I’m about to tell you might hurt you, and I’m sorry for that in advance.
Julian wrote that in the winter Evan died, he’d been living on the streets with a small group of older boys who survived however they could — breaking into parked cars, lifting things from unlocked garages, pawning whatever they found.
A few days before Evan’s funeral, someone passed along a tip.
A young man was going to be buried with an expensive camera — the kind his family had saved up for.
My stomach dropped.
I remembered tucking that camera into the casket myself, beside Evan’s folded hands. He’d carried it everywhere the last year of his life.
And suddenly I understood something I never wanted to understand.
Julian had known about my son before I ever sat beside him on that curb.
I kept reading.
He wrote that one of the funeral home’s night attendants had agreed to look away for a little cash. That was all it took — a few bills, a side door left unlocked, a warning about when the viewing room would sit empty.
They slipped in before the casket was sealed and took the camera.
