I closed the door, and I turned around, and my two sons were looking at me.
“Dad,” Micah said, and his voice finally cracked, all the bravado gone. “You okay?”
I looked at them. These two impossible, wonderful men I’d built a whole life around over two cribs at three in the morning.
“Boys,” I said, “I have never been more okay in my life. Now fix your cuff link, Micah, you’ve had it crooked this whole time. We are not going to be late.”
And we weren’t.
PART 5 — FINAL
We made it with four minutes to spare.
I sat in the family section in my one good shirt, between two empty seats that would fill back up when the boys came to find me after, and I watched them walk across that stage, one four minutes after the other the same way they came into the world, and I clapped until my hands hurt and didn’t care who saw me cry.
