Then Megan’s car pulled in behind his truck.
Rachel had called her.
She got out with both hands over her mouth.
She looked at her husband at the bottom of the ramp with nineteen people around him and she didn’t say a word.
She just walked up and stood next to him.
Not holding him.
Not leaving.
Standing.
That’s all you can do sometimes.
I know. I did it for thirty-four years in a trauma bay.
“Kyle,” I said.
He looked up.
“I’m not getting in the truck.”
“I’m staying for pie.”
“You’re welcome to stay too. Emma would like that.”
“But you’ll have to walk up the ramp like everybody else.”
He didn’t.
Not that day.
He got in his truck with Megan, and backed out crooked, and drove off down Cedar Hollow Road.
And Gene turned to me on top of that ramp, with nineteen people and two pies and a four-year-old looking up, and said:
