Noah almost smiled. “Okay.”
Then Kevin cleared his throat. “About that. I may have an idea.”
He explained that the night he’d followed the boys home from the car wash, he couldn’t sleep. He’d sat at the kitchen table with his laptop until two in the morning, researching. He found community colleges with evening classes, part-time enrollment for working adults, and transfer agreements with the state university. He’d printed three pages and tucked them in his briefcase, because he didn’t want to raise my hopes before talking to me.
“I remembered you once told me you’d wanted to study medicine,” he said.
I laughed, and it came out like a hiccup. “Kevin, I’m thirty-one.”
“So?”
“I haven’t been inside a classroom in years.”
“And?”
“I have a job. A mortgage. Two teenagers who apparently moonlight at car washes.”
“And a husband,” he said, smiling, “who can cook a decent lasagna and help with fractions.”
