I Hired a Teenage Boy to Mow My Lawn for the Summer Because I Thought He Needed the Money — Then I Discovered He Had Been Coming to My House for an Entirely Different Reason About a month after moving into my new house, a teenage boy showed up at my front door pushing an old lawn mower that looked like it had been repaired more times than I could count.
He couldn’t have been older than fifteen. “Hi, ma’am,” he said politely.
“Would you happen to need someone to mow your lawn this summer?” His name was Chase.
He explained that he lived with his mother in a nearby trailer park and wanted to earn some money before school started again.
He seemed respectful and sincere, and my lawn definitely needed attention, so I agreed.
Hiring him turned out to be one of the easiest decisions I had made since moving.
Chase was dependable. He always arrived on time. He worked hard without complaining.
He never stood around scrolling through his phone, and he didn’t rush just to get paid.
Every time he finished, the yard looked better than I could have done myself.
Because of that, I usually gave him a little extra money. But there was one thing about Chase that kept bothering me.
He looked familiar. Not in an obvious way. It was simply something about his face.
Every week, when he arrived, I caught myself staring at him and trying to figure out where I might have seen him before.
Maybe he resembled someone from the neighborhood. Maybe I had seen him at a local store.
Maybe he reminded me of someone in an old photograph. I couldn’t place it.
