I could not blame them for that.
I simply could not stop fearing it.
The morning of their college graduation, I sat in my truck for twenty minutes before finding the courage to step outside.
I was forty-nine.
My beard had turned gray in uneven patches.
My right knee still hurt from falling off a ladder two summers earlier.
A cheap camera rested in my lap.
I had purchased it because Maisie said phone photographs did not count as proper graduation pictures.
I did not know how to use half its settings.
Inside my wallet, behind an expired insurance card and an old food receipt, was Callan’s original note.
I had carried it for twenty-two years.
I’m sorry, Reid. I can’t do this.
The ink had faded.
