But if it must be given back, then let it be given like this, all at once, in a diner kitchen, watching the fear pour off him and the child underneath come blinking back into the light.

He put his face in his hands and he cried, and this time they were not tears of fear or grief or shame.

They were tears of pure, total relief, and I gathered him up and held him and rocked him and whispered into his hair that it was over, that it was all over, that everything was going to be all right, and that he did not have to be the man of the house anymore, not ever again, that he only had to be my boy.

Then Sal, wiping his own eyes, clapped his big hands together and said there was one last piece of business, and he led us out through the dining room and into the parking lot, to a thing standing beside his truck under a dark blue tarp.