I just didn’t know how to knock on the door of a woman whose whole world I was about to change. »
PART 2
Her name was Rosa.
She made tea neither of us drank, and I sat on a sagging couch in that small house, and the little boy played on the floor with the dog, and Rosa told me about the year of my son’s life I never knew existed.
« I met Caleb at the community college, » she said. « The spring before. We were both in the automotive program.
I didn’t have papers to be there, really — long story, my family’s situation was complicated — and I kept to myself.
But Caleb didn’t let anyone keep to themselves. You know how he was. »
I did know how he was.
He collected people. Strays. The kid nobody sat with. The old man at the hardware store.
Once he brought home a boy from school who had nowhere to go for Thanksgiving and never explained it, just set another place.
