I’ve learned that saying something out loud lets other people carry a corner of it. I wish I’d learned that three years sooner.
One year later, Lincoln Middle School held its Father’s Day assembly again.
Caleb was thirteen. He didn’t perform this time. He said once was enough, and he was too busy being in the eighth grade to embarrass himself in front of the seventh graders.
But he asked if we could go anyway.
“Why?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Just because.”
So we went. I took the same seat in the middle. Caleb sat beside me this time instead of with his class, which I was told was deeply uncool for an eighth grader. He didn’t seem to care.
Right before it started, the double doors at the back of the gym opened.
I didn’t jump this time.
It was Ray. Just Ray. Not in uniform. A plaid shirt and jeans and his old mustache, and a box of donuts under his arm because he said he never trusted school donuts.
