Chapter 16 — One in the Morning

We walked out of the auditorium together that night, my son and I, hand in hand, past the people who reached out to touch his shoulder, to say a word, to weep openly at the sight of him.

Julian did not change out of the red dress.

He wore it out of the gymnasium, and through the parking lot, and on the drive home, with a quiet pride that no longer had anything to prove.

And later, at one o’clock in the morning, we sat together in our kitchen, the same kitchen where he had shown me the dress two weeks before, drinking warm tea in the low light.