“Are you going to visit Steve this weekend?” Sherry asked.
“I thought I would go over and spend some time with him,” I told her. “I want to see his new house and find out how he’s doing in San Ignacio.”
“It’s good to see you,” Steve said, when he picked me up at the bus station. “You’re the first of my old friends to visit me since I moved out to the Western part of Belize.”
At dinner I said, “Little Stevie has grown a lot since I last saw him,”
“I’m nine, Mr. Dennis,” Stevie said. “I’m getting really big.”
“You sure are. You’re going to be a fine man someday.”
The next morning, Betty, Steve’s wife said. “Steve isn’t coming down for breakfast. He’s been sick all night. Why don’t you go up and see him?”
“It was a rough night,” he told me, when I went up to his bedroom. “I spent the whole night either throwing up or going to the bathroom. It must be a stomach virus.”
“That’s too bad,” I said.
“I have a really big favor to ask,” he said. “Today was supposed to be our first day at the new church that we joined. Stevie is going to be very disappointed that I couldn’t take him. Will you take him to Sunday School?”
“Sure.”
“Here,” he said, handing me a $20 bill. “They have some alms boxes set up inside the door as you go in. When church is over tell Stevie to put this in one of the boxes.”
Halfway through the service Stevie leaned over to me and said, “I’m really sick Mr. Dennis. I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Don’t do it here,” I told him. “The bathroom is out back and around on the side of the church.”
He was back in less than a minute and I asked, “Did you go to the bathroom?”
“I was going to,” he said, “but right outside the door was a box on the wall that said, FOR THE SICK so I just did it in there.
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