“No,” I said. “It wasn’t.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him. Really looked at him, for the first time in three years. Not at the uniform. At him. At Ray, who’d sat by my husband’s bed every night after his shifts. Who’d carried the casket. Who’d left a baseball glove on my porch step and driven away.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Ray. I’m so sorry. Every time I saw you, I saw the worst year of my life. And I made Caleb pay for it.”
“You didn’t make me pay for anything,” Caleb said.
“Yes, I did, sweetheart. I did.”
He didn’t argue. He just leaned his head on my shoulder.
Ray reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Speaking of that,” he said. “I’ve got something that belongs to you, bud.”
He pulled out a baseball glove. Small, a kid’s size, the leather barely broken in. A little dusty.
