My late son’s old Nissan pickup sat near the garage under a coat of dust so thick I could have written my name across the hood.
The Texas heat pressed against the back of my neck.
Near the front steps, though, the air changed.
It carried a sour, shut-in smell that made my stomach tighten before my mind knew what to call it.
That house should have smelled like laundry soap, warm milk, and Dylan’s soccer cleats kicked crooked by the door.
Instead, it smelled like a secret.
Dylan had been my Saturday boy since my son died four years earlier.
Every weekend, he used to run up my porch with his sneakers slapping the boards, breathless before he even reached me.
He would wrap both hands around a mug of warm milk at my kitchen table and tell me everything.
School.
Soccer.
