When Caleb finally pulled back, his face was red and swollen and his nose was running onto David’s shirt. He wiped it with his sleeve.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t you dare be sorry.”
He laughed, wetly. Then he looked over my shoulder, and his face changed.
I turned around.
Ray Delgado was standing a few feet away. Hat in his hands. He looked older up close. Tired. His eyes were red.
“Hey, Jen,” he said.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
“Hey, kid,” Ray said to Caleb. His voice cracked on the second word. “You didn’t tell me you’d gotten that good.”
Caleb went to him. Just walked past me and wrapped his arms around Ray’s middle and held on. Ray put one big hand on the back of my son’s head and closed his eyes.
I stood there and watched, and something in my chest that had been clenched shut for three years started, very slowly, to come undone.
