«I’ll give you a million if you cure me,» smiled the billionaire… Until the child touched him…

He had lost weight, grayed even more, walked slowly with a cane, but in each movement was something new. Persistence, meaning, purpose. In the former abandoned school, work now boiled.

By his project, the Mary Institute was being created here—an educational center for kids from demolished neighborhoods. Not just a shelter, not just a classroom with wallpaper, but a real place where kids would be safe and interested in living and learning. Every morning, he came there like a worker.

Sometimes with papers, more often with tools. He was not a leader, but a participant. Lifted boxes, painted walls, checked ventilation.

The kids no longer feared him. He became «Uncle Alexander» to them. Sometimes with candies, sometimes with jokes, sometimes just nearby.

He sat with them on the floor, assembled constructors, read fairy tales. «Were you really a billionaire?» one boy asked once. «Was,» he replied.

«And now I’m a person.» He no longer lived in a mansion. Bought a small apartment near the school, cooked himself.

Washed himself. Sometimes Mary looked after his meals, but otherwise he learned to live anew. Without servants, without drivers, without distance from the world.

Luke was almost no longer a child. He had grown taller, wore glasses, kept notebooks with neat notes. He studied in special courses that Alexander himself paid for and prepared to enter medical college.

It was he who was the first to speak at the opening of the Mary Institute. The hall was full. Kids, parents, volunteers, builders.

Cameras, officials. All were there. But he was the main one.

Luke stood on stage, in a light shirt and with the same serious expression with which, many months ago, he looked at the man in the wheelchair under the sycamore. «Once I played doctor,» he began. «And told one person I could cure him.

I was only nine then. And you know what? I didn’t know if I could. But I believed.»

He scanned the hall. «And then he cured me. Not the body, but with deeds»…

He showed that any evil caused to others can be started to be fixed. «Not with money. With hands.

Choice. Actions. I want to become a doctor.

I want to help others, like I was once helped.» He turned. In the front row sat Alexander.

With a cane, but without a suit. Simple. Corduroy pants…