My Son Walked Across the Graduation Stage Wearing a Bright Red Dress While Hundreds of People Laughed. I Was the Only Person in the Auditorium Who Knew Why.

He did not speak to me first.

He went to the kitchen.

Father and son looked at each other across the same table where the dress had been two weeks earlier.

Caleb looked at the red, then at the locket.

“I was a coward, Julian,” he said.

“I was so afraid of the pain of losing her that I let you carry her all by yourself.”