And it never came. Not like that. David didn’t die on the job. He died in a hospital bed in our living room, of an illness that took him slowly, one piece at a time, over fourteen months.
But my body didn’t know that. My body only knew the walk.
I stood up so fast my folding chair tipped backward and clattered on the floor.
People turned to look at me. I didn’t care. My eyes went straight to the stage, to Caleb, because he was the only person left in the world they could be coming about.
He’d stopped playing.
His fingers were frozen on the strings. His mouth was still open on the last word he’d sung. He was staring at the back of the gym, and his face had gone white.
The music teacher, Mr. Lowe, half rose from the piano bench. Principal Whitfield stepped away from the wall with her hand already out, like she was going to stop them, or ask them to wait, or ask them what on earth they were doing interrupting a Father’s Day assembly in the middle of a grieving boy’s song.
