“Ask him this afternoon. Not in a rush. And Lauren—” He waited until she looked at him. “If he says no, you don’t get to look wounded. You spent his courage yesterday. You don’t get to invoice him for it.”
“I won’t.”
She asked him on the back steps with a blanket over both their knees because the afternoon had turned. Derek watched from the kitchen and did not coach it. Mason listened to the whole schedule: the airplane, Grandpa, Claire, two nights, Jonah maybe staying longer, Dad at the other airport when the return landed, the right to say no without a speech. He kicked his heel against the step for a while. Then he said he would go if he could bring the backpack and if Dad answered the phone even if it was during practice. Derek, when this was reported to him, called the clinic and moved his Tuesday athletes to Wednesday and told the school he needed two personal days, which was true, and which he did not explain. He told Mason the phone would be on. He let the boy put the promise in the backpack in the form of a sticky note in Derek’s handwriting: I WILL BE AT THE DOOR. Mason stuck it to the library book, inside the cover, where it would not have to be shown to anyone to be real.
They flew on Tuesday. Not the same flight. A later one, cheaper in the way of things you buy without panic, still more money than the jar could stand. Derek drove them. The curb was a different curb, morning again, overcast again, as if the city kept a limited stock of skies. He got out. He did not open the trunk and then stand there being surprised. He lifted the blue suitcase and the pink one onto the cart Jonah had gotten from inside, because Jonah had gone in first to be useful, which was his way of not standing still. Mason wore the tan jacket. The backpack was on both shoulders. He looked small and resolved.
“You can still say no,” Derek said.
“I know. I’m saying yes. It’s a different yes.”