Both boys were awake by evening. They’d been put in rooms across the hall from each other. When the nurses weren’t looking, Wyatt shuffled over in his hospital socks, dragging his IV pole, and sat on the end of Ezra’s bed.
They didn’t say much. They just sat there, two boys with the same crooked half smile, laughing at something stupid on Ezra’s phone.
Strangers would have thought they were brothers.
For once, nobody corrected them.
EMOTIONAL ENDING
In October, Wyatt and Ezra moved back into the little apartment above the hardware store. This time, there was a pill organizer on the kitchen counter for each of them and a chore chart in Renata’s handwriting on the fridge.
The night before he moved back, I brought a small cedar box down from my closet.
“Your dad wrote you something,” I said. “The year before he passed. He made me promise to give it to you only if you ever found out. I think you’ve earned it.”
