“I’m not sure I deserve that title.”

“You make us smarter,” she said.

“That counts.”

I watched him fold the drawing with extraordinary care.

The man who had once sold his medals to buy diapers was learning that his gifts didn’t have to be expensive or secret.

Sometimes they were stories about growing beans or knowing how to listen when a child stumbled over a word.

When I walked him home, the maple leaves lay thick along the sidewalk.

He stopped outside Rebecca’s house as he often did now.