Cruz was in a navy blazer I’d had tailored for him.

Sofia wore a white dress with little pink flowers that she’d picked out herself, because she wanted to look nice for her grandfather.

They had been excited for weeks.

That is the part I keep coming back to.

Sofia had made Alton a card at the kitchen table, a lopsided drawing of a cake with seventy candles she’d insisted on counting and coloring one by one, and she’d carried it across the country in her little backpack so it wouldn’t get bent.

Cruz had practiced saying happy birthday, Grandpa with a certain formal seriousness, wanting to get it right.