what the monitors meant.
“What exactly did he say?” I asked.
Zach rubbed his thumb against a scratch on the table.
“He said you were acting like everything was fine even when it wasn’t. He told me not to let you be exploited.”
My anger has subsided.
“He looks like your father.”
“He was worried.”
“He was always worried.”
“Me too.”
“I know.”
Zach looked up.
Her eyes were red around the edges.
For a split second, he was no longer a forty-year-old businessman with two children.
He was my son.
The one who slept with a baseball glove under his pillow.
It was in this very alley that Dwight learned to ride a bike.
“I don’t want anyone to replace him,” Zach said.
And there you have it.
The original.
Not money.
Not Wendell.
Grief.
“Oh, my darling.”
I reached my hand over
