So I pulled out a chair.
“Sit with me.”
“I’m working.”
“Five minutes.”
He hesitated.
Then sat.
At first, Jason avoided talking about himself.
He asked about my life.
My work.
My recovery.
He listened as I told him about the years of therapy and the first time I stood without assistance.
“That must have been incredible,” he said.
“It was.”
Then I looked at him.
“What happened to you?”
His smile disappeared.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Finally, he sighed.
“Life.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He laughed softly.
“No. I guess it isn’t.”
Jason told me he had received a basketball scholarship after high school.
For a while, everything had gone according to plan.
Then his father became seriously ill.
Jason dropped out of college and came home to help his family.
One semester became two.
Then three.
He never went back.
Years later, he married.
Had a daughter.
Worked construction.
And then, six years earlier, he fell from a platform at work.
He survived.
But his hip and lower back were badly injured.
After several surgeries, he could walk—but heavy physical work was no longer possible.
Then came the medical bills.
The divorce.
The loss of his house.
His daughter moved to another state with her mother.
Jason took whatever work he could find.
Now he worked mornings cleaning the café and evenings stocking shelves at a grocery store.
“I’m fine,” he said.
I almost smiled.
Because I knew that sentence.
I had used it for years.
“I’m fine.”
Usually when I was anything but.
Jason looked at the clock.
“My break is almost over.”
Before he stood, I asked him one question.
“If you could do anything right now, what would you do?”
He frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“If money wasn’t the problem. If your injury wasn’t the problem. What would you actually want?”
He looked toward the window.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Then he smiled faintly.
“Coach.”
“Basketball?”
“Anything.”
He shrugged.
“I always liked working with kids.”
Then his expression changed.
“But that ship sailed a long time ago.”
I said nothing.
Jason stood.
“It was good seeing you, Rachel.”
He smiled.
“Really good.”
I watched him limp back toward the mop bucket.
And I already knew what I was going to do.
Jason had no idea that I wasn’t just passing through town.
