Chapter 7 - The Value of a Dollar
Spring came, and with it, the first real crack in the frost between Elm Street and me.
It was a Saturday morning in April when my phone rang. It was Marissa. I hesitated, then answered.
"Donald?" her voice sounded different. Not angry, not pleading. Just tired. "Are you free this afternoon?"
"I have a shift at four," I said cautiously. "Why?"
"Tyler wants to see you. He... he has something he wants to show you."
I paused. "Is Mom there?"
"No, she’s at church. It’s just us. Please, Donald. It’s important."
An hour later, I pulled up to the house on Elm Street. The driveway looked different; Marissa's flashy SUV was gone, replaced by a dinged-up Honda Civic. The lawn needed mowing, but the front porch didn't have the usual clutter of Amazon boxes that used to pile up weekly.
I walked up the steps and knocked. Marissa opened the door. She looked thinner, her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, lacking the expensive salon look she usually maintained.
"Hi," she said, stepping back. "Thanks for coming."
"Where's Tyler?" I asked, looking into the living room. It looked the same, though the large flat-screen TV had been replaced by a smaller, older model.
"In his room. Go on up."
I walked up the stairs, my boots loud on the wood. Tyler’s door was half-open. I tapped on the frame.
The ten-year-old was sitting on the floor, surrounded by a sea of plastic bricks. But it wasn't a giant, expensive set. It was a collection of miscellaneous pieces, assorted colors and sizes, spread out across an old bedsheet.
He looked up. His face wasn't the arrogant, folded-arms mask from Christmas morning. He looked nervous.
"Hey, Uncle Donald," he said.
"Hey, buddy," I said, leaning against the doorframe. "What are you building?"
"A garage," he said, holding up a small, uneven structure made of red and blue bricks. "Mom said if I wanted the big spaceship set, I had to earn it. I’ve been doing the dishes and cleaning the yard for three months. I have forty-two dollars saved up."
He pointed to a glass jar on his dresser. Inside were wrinkled one-dollar bills and a handful of quarters.
"Forty-two dollars is a lot of money," I said, walking into the room and sitting cross-legged on the floor across from him.
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"The spaceship costs eighty," Tyler said, looking down at his mismatched garage. "It’s not the biggest one. But it’s the one I can get next month if I keep doing the yard."
He looked up at me, his eyes wide and serious. "I'm sorry I dropped the box on Christmas. I didn't know how much work it took to buy it."
