“Did he see you?”
“Yeah. He came down the ladder and looked at me and just said, ‘Hey, buddy.’ Like I was still nine.” Sam’s voice cracked. “He didn’t try to hug me or anything. He just said he was sorry he’d missed so much. He said he understood if I didn’t want to talk to him. And he went back up the ladder.”
“And you went back.”
“The next day. I just wanted to see if it was really him.” He wiped his nose with his sleeve. “And then I kept going back. He was teaching me how to sharpen skates. He was telling me stuff. About when he was a kid. About Grandpa. About the drinking. He doesn’t pretend it wasn’t bad, Mom. He says it was worse than I knew.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.” He was crying now. “I was going to. Every night I was going to. But I knew you’d do exactly what you did yesterday, and I just wanted one more week. Just one more.”
