That the man who could offer him Denver and a fortune would simply be more impressive than the man who could offer him a wrecked sofa and a used truck.

I lay awake that whole night wrestling that fear, and I never fully beat it.

What I did instead was decide to act against it — to let my son go and find out for himself who his father was, and to trust that fourteen years of showing up had built something a suit couldn’t outbid.

It was the biggest gamble of my life, and I made it lying alone in the dark, and I would not know until the next night, on those bleachers, whether I’d bet right.

He stood in the doorway a moment before he left.