That is not mine to decide.

What’s mine to do is the same small, unglamorous thing it has always been: notice, believe, and pick up the phone.

So I made a note of his name, and I resolved to keep my eyes open, and I smiled at his mother and told her we were glad they’d come.

The cage, I have learned, is never gone for good.

But neither are the people who leave the door open.

I intend to be one of them for as long as they let me stand at the gate.

THE END.