There were other strange things too.
One Saturday, Caleb asked if he could walk to the library alone. He never went to the library. He came back three hours later, and when I asked what book he got, he said they didn’t have it.
Another evening, I came into the kitchen and he was on the house phone, the old landline we never used anymore. He hung up so fast he almost dropped it.
“Who was that?”
“Nobody. Wrong number.”
“You were talking to a wrong number?”
“They were asking for somebody. I told them they had the wrong number.”
He went upstairs. I looked at the phone for a long time. I almost checked the call history. Then I didn’t.
And about a week before the assembly, my cell phone rang while I was at work.
I looked at the screen.
RAY DELGADO.
I hadn’t deleted his number. I’d thought about it. I’d thought about it a lot. But every time, my thumb just hovered there and I couldn’t make myself do it.
