PART 2: The Sacrifice
The morning the police came to my door, I thought my son had done something terrible. That was my first mistake. My second was believing I knew the whole story a few nights earlier, when I walked into Alejandro’s room with a laundry basket on my hip and noticed the empty space by his desk.
His guitar was gone.
“Alejandro?” I called.
“Yeah, Mom?” he yelled from the kitchen.
“Where’s your guitar, son?”
“Mom,” he said, appearing in the doorway to his room. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you…”
“Alejandro, what’s going on?”
He lowered his eyes. “I sold my guitar, Mom.”
“You did what?!” I put the basket down on the floor because my hands had gone weak. “Why would you do that? That guitar meant everything to you.”
He swallowed hard. “It did. But Elena needed a new wheelchair.”
I just stared at him, completely stunned.
“Her old chair was barely working,” he said quickly, the words rushing out of him. “The wheels kept sticking, and she kept pretending she was fine, but she wasn’t. She missed lunch twice last week because it took too long for her to get across the building.”
“Alejandro…”
But I couldn’t get a word in. Once he’d started speaking, there was no stopping him.
“Her family doesn’t have money for a new one right now,” his voice got smaller, filled with a heavy empathy. “So I sold the guitar.”
I sat down on the edge of his bed without meaning to. Elena was his classmate. She was a sweet girl with sharp eyes and a lovely smile, and she always had a book in her lap when I picked Alejandro up from school events. She had been paralyzed in an accident when she was little; I knew that much. But I hadn’t known her chair had gotten that bad.
“How did you even do this?” I asked.
He shifted nervously in the doorway. “I posted the guitar online. Mr. Keller from church bought it.”
I blinked in disbelief. “You sold an expensive guitar to a grown man from church without telling me?”
“He asked if I was sure like… four times, Mom.”
“Alejandro…”
“I was sure, Mom. I still am.”
I pressed my fingers to my forehead. My son was so sincere that I wanted to cry and lecture him at the same time. “Why didn’t you come to me first?”
He looked miserable now. “Because if I told you, you’d want to figure out a grown up way. Elena couldn’t wait. She needed it now.”
That hit hard because he was right. I was practical by nature. I made lists, stretched the grocery money, and compared prices across town. My son had skipped all of that and gone straight to sacrifice.
I let out a slow breath. “Did you get a fair price?”
He nodded. “Mostly.”
“Mostly isn’t a number, Alejandro.”
“I asked for $1,200. I got $850. But it was enough. I ordered it through the hospital, and it’s paid for. They’ll call when it’s ready.”
I closed my eyes. That guitar had cost more, but not by much. It wasn’t reckless stupidity, and I had to admit he had thought it through.
“Mom?” I opened my eyes. He was watching me carefully, the way he did when he couldn’t tell whether I was about to hug him or ground him. “Are you mad?”
I looked at him for a long moment. “I am shocked, baby,” I said. “But I am so incredibly proud of you. And I’m also mad that you sold something that valuable without telling me first.”
He nodded quickly. “That’s fair.”
I held out my hand. “Come here.”
He crossed the room and folded himself into me, all elbows and thirteen year old awkwardness. I wrapped my arms around him and felt the last of my anger melt into something heavier and warmer.
