So I cut down the thing that was shading him, all of it, in a single hard morning, and I planted him instead in a plainer, sunnier, more honest soil — a grandmother’s protected afternoons, a park, a badly thrown football, a love that asked nothing of him and lied to him about nothing.

He will not grow up rich, now, the way he would have.

He will grow up straight.

Given the choice, and I was given the choice, I will take straight over rich for that child every single time.

Chapter 19 — He’s a Good Boy

Steven stood a little way off, near the park pavilion, watching his son play.

He looked gaunt these days, and older, and the expensive gloss he had worn for so many years had worn away entirely, and what was left underneath it was quieter, and humbler, and — I will allow myself to hope — more real.

After a while he came over, slowly, his hands pushed down into his pockets, and he stopped a respectful distance from my bench, not presuming to sit.