Mason cheered for both teams. He didn’t entirely understand which side was ours.
At six o’clock, I watched the side door.
At six-oh-five, I watched it harder.
Dad has never been late. But he’s also never been seventy-nine with a new hip on a cold October night before.
Travis noticed me watching.
“Who are you looking for?”
“Nobody,” I said.
That was a lie. It sat in my mouth like a sour mint.
At twelve minutes after six, the side door swung open.
And my father walked through it.
My whole chest let go of something I’d been holding since Tuesday supper.
He was wearing his tan Sunday sport coat. The one he wore to my mother’s funeral. And to Mason’s baptism. And to nothing in between.
Under it, a white shirt buttoned all the way to the top.
And on his head, his seed corn cap. The good one. The green one he keeps on the hook by the back door and only wears to town.
