We knocked on the gray house.
Walter opened the door in a pressed shirt, like a man dressing for the most important meeting of his life.
He was thin, and old, and terrified, and when he saw Noah he made a sound I’ve only heard from people at gravesides and reunions.
“You came,” he said.
“‘Course,” said Noah. “You said you couldn’t do it alone. So you’re not alone. That’s how it works.”
Eight years old.
That’s how it works.
Walter took Noah’s hand — an old man and a small boy — and I walked on his other side, and the three of us crossed four houses to the door Walter had been too afraid to approach for nine years.
Rachel opened it, Lucy on her hip in the red dress she refused to take off.
Rachel looked at me.
At the old man.
At the metal lunchbox in his shaking hands.
