I had to sit down.
“Also,” she added, “he’s started eating lunch with a group of boys from the music program. And he and Tyler Brennan were partners on the science project. They got an A.”
Tyler. His best friend from before. The one I used to buy cereal for.
That Saturday, Tyler came over for the first time in three years. He stood awkwardly in the kitchen doorway, taller than I remembered, with a backpack over one shoulder.
“Hi, Mrs. Morrison.”
“Hi, Tyler. You want some cereal?”
He blinked. “You still have the one with the marshmallows?”
I didn’t. I went out and bought it that afternoon.
Caleb still has hard days. So do I.
There are mornings when he comes downstairs and barely says a word, and I have to remind myself that it’s okay, that quiet isn’t the same as gone. There are nights I still hear the guitar through the wall, and some of those nights the songs are sad ones. But now, sometimes, he leaves his door open while he plays.
