MY DAUGHTER KEPT GETTING FREE ICE CREAM FROM THE SAME TRUCK — THEN THE DRIVER HANDED HER A NOTE AND SAID,s, “MAKE SURE YOUR MOM READS THIS.”
BY THE THIRD LINE OF THAT NOTE, MY HANDS WERE SHAKING — BECAUSE IT WAS SIGNED BY A MAN I’D BEEN TOLD DIED TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.
PART 1
My daughter kept getting free ice cream from the same truck — then the driver gave her a note and told her, “Make sure your mom reads this.”
For about two weeks, my nine-year-old daughter, Ellie, kept coming back inside with ice cream even though I knew she hadn’t taken any money with her.
My name is Sarah, and we live in a pretty normal suburban neighborhood in Cedar Hollow, Indiana, where an ice cream truck rolls through a few evenings a week during the summer.
The second Ellie hears the music, she’s usually at the front door asking for three dollars.
One afternoon, she came back holding a strawberry shortcake bar.
“I thought you didn’t have any allowance left.”
“I didn’t need it.”
“Why?”
“The man gave it to me.”
I assumed he was just being nice.
There were always a bunch of neighborhood kids around the truck, and maybe he’d had an extra one or something.
Then it happened again.
And again.
By the fourth time, I asked Ellie why this guy kept giving her free ice cream.
She shrugged.
“He says strawberry was your favorite too.”
I stopped what I was doing.
“My favorite?”
She nodded.
“He said you always got this one.”
That was strange, because strawberry shortcake bars actually were my favorite when I was a kid.
But I figured Ellie must have mentioned it somehow.
“Did you tell him my name?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him I used to eat those?”
“No.”
That bothered me enough that the next time I heard the truck, I went outside with her.
The driver was probably in his late fifties or early sixties.
Gray hair, baseball cap, glasses.s
Just a regular older guy.
Ellie walked up to the window and he immediately said, “Hey, kiddo.”
Then he saw me standing behind her.
He just stared.
Not dramatically.
He genuinely looked like he was trying to place my face.
Finally he said, “You’re Ellie’s mom?”
“Yes.”
He nodded a couple of times.
Then he said my first name.
“Sarah?”
I hadn’t told him.
I said, “Do I know you?”
