WHICH MAN STAYS?
He curled on the sofa, and I was grateful for the screen’s glow that absorbed him, leaving me alone with the howling quiet in my head.
I needed to pack a bag for him. For where? A courthouse? A brief, sterile ceremony, then back here to wait for a hearing that would decide if he’d live with his father? I pulled his small dinosaur backpack from the floor, unzipping it to shake out yesterday’s crumpled socks and a granola bar wrapper.
A piece of paper, folded into a thick, clumsy square, fluttered out.
I picked it up. It was a drawing, done in the waxy, exuberant strokes of a five-year-old. Leo’s work. He must have done it at the country house.