He wrote back in under a minute.
Thank you. I’ll be there. Thank you.
And then, a second later:
Can my mom come?
I stared at that one for a long time.
Not yet, I wrote.
Okay, he wrote. I understand.
He came on Saturday at exactly two o’clock. I watched from the front window as he pulled up. He sat in the car for six whole minutes before he got out. I counted.
He’d shaved. He was wearing a clean blue shirt. He’d lost weight. I could see it in his face, in the way his collar sat loose around his neck. He was holding a small paper bag.
My dad opened the door. The two of them looked at each other on the step for a long moment.
“Mr. Sanders,” Ben said quietly. “Thank you for letting me in.”
“I didn’t let you in,” my dad said. “She did. Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t, sir.”
My dad stepped aside.
Ben came into the living room. I was sitting on the couch with Evelyn in my arms. She was awake. She’d just finished eating, and she was in that milk-drunk, dreamy state, blinking slowly at the ceiling light.
Ben stopped in the middle of the room. He didn’t come any closer.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Is it okay if I sit?”
I nodded toward the armchair. He sat on the edge of it, the same way Diane had sat on the ottoman three weeks before.
He didn’t take his eyes off her.
“She’s gotten bigger,” he said.
“Babies do that.”
“Her hair.” He almost smiled. “It’s even redder.”
“My mom says it’ll probably turn brown by the time she’s two. Like hers did.”
“I hope it doesn’t,” he said. “I hope she keeps it.”
