Stillness

Well. There’s the moment after you’ve said it--those words that he didn’t want to hear, in the quiet of just before sunset:

“I’m sorry, we can’t help you.”

He leaves, wordlessly, in a huff. Shortly thereafter, you hear the sound of an empty soda bottle clattering to the cement ground. You wonder if you made a mistake--what you said, or how you said it. You briefly reconsider if you should’ve said instead:

“I’m sorry, sir, but you are mistaken. You did come here on Monday night and made the same request. The pastor helped you with $100 out of his own pocket. How can we trust that you are telling the truth now?”

What is the truth? Did he just forget that he came here on Monday night? He insisted multiple times that he had never been here before. Did I turn away a father in a dire time of need, when he needed a mere $136 to cover the remaining cost for catheters and saline solution for his poor tracheotomy-tube breathing one-year-old son? Or was this another ploy, albeit all the more convincing because his level of detail about the situation and his seeming earnestness about his son? Is it possible that this is another Anthony Ramirez who happens to have the same situation? Why can’t I sense when someone is lying to me? Shouldn’t I just know?