Alvarez explained the differences between six products he had never expected to understand.
He bought three of each.
“Preparedness,” he said when I stared at the bags.
He worked part-time repairing furniture after his pension stopped stretching far enough.
At night, I fell asleep to the soft scrape of sandpaper from his workshop.
The house itself was always asking for something.
A new water heater.
Roof shingles.
Another patch for the porch.
Yet there was always a birthday cake.
Always a winter coat.
Always someone awake when I had a nightmare.
He never once made me feel that loving me had ruined his plans.
When I was thirteen, I found photographs of my parents online.
A beach vacation.
A restaurant birthday.
Chloe in a sparkling dress beside a swimming pool.
I searched every face in those pictures for signs of missing me.
There weren’t any.
That night, Grandpa found me sitting on the kitchen floor with my laptop.
