For four Saturdays, everything went fine.
On the fifth Saturday, Greg didn’t come.
We were in the Hartley Park lot at ten o’clock, the way we always were. Sam had his skates over his shoulder. At ten fifteen, he texted Greg. At ten thirty, he called. It went straight to voicemail. He called again. Voicemail.
“Maybe he’s just running late,” I said.
“He’s never late.” Sam was staring at his phone. “He’s always here before us. Always. He says it’s a thing he does now. Being early.”
At ten forty-five, Sam called the rink. The weekend manager said Greg hadn’t been in since Thursday. He’d called in sick on Friday.
I watched my son’s face. I watched the exact moment the old fear came back into it. The bench. The cold. The dark. He was sixteen and six feet tall, and right then he was eight years old again.
