“Can we go look at the trees out back before it gets hot?” he asked.

By four, the sycamore’s shadow stretched all the way to the back row of sweet oranges.

Caleb carried an empty plastic tub for anything he caught, walking five feet in front of me along the dry irrigation ditch.

A gray spiny lizard shot across the dry leaves and vanished into a hollow root beneath the trunk.

Caleb squatted on his heels, watching the little dark hole in the bark.

“Dad didn’t wear his suit coat today,” he said.