I cried against his shoulder without being able to explain whether I was crying because he had come, because Garrett had left, or because I could hear two babies breathing nearby.

Walter Prescott was sixty-three.

He owned Pacific Harbor Freight, the company employing my husband and Kendra.

He had built routes between Long Beach, Savannah, and Houston.

He knew how to ask a question that made a room of executives reach for their files.

That morning, I needed him to understand that I was not one of those executives.

“I didn’t come to tell you what to do,” he said.

“I need that to be true.”