“Sweetheart…”
“I heard you, Mom.” His eyes filled again. “And I didn’t say anything. Because you were so sad. And I didn’t want to make it worse. But they were Dad’s family. They were our family. And you made them go away.”
The gym was still full of people, and I didn’t care about a single one of them. I was looking at my son, who had finally said the thing he’d been carrying since he was nine years old, sitting at the top of the stairs.
“How did you get his number?” I asked. It was a stupid question. It was the only one I could manage.
Caleb reached into the pocket of his father’s shirt.
He took out a folded piece of paper. Old, soft, the creases worn almost white.
“Dad told me,” he said. “He left me a letter.”
We didn’t go back for the rest of the assembly.
