Mrs Bradley sighs, taking a seat on the couch in the living room. She waves me over and I oblige, sitting down beside her. ‘We were in Boston about a year when I had my visiting professorship. Up and moved everything that summer. My husband even found a position as a guest physician at the School of Medicine so he could be there with me. Colt, though, he wanted more from that place. So he applied, got in, and before we knew it, University of Boston. We could scarcely believe it. He struck it big on the UB lax team – Division One. That had done more than enough for his chances to go pro. And then, three years later, the draft came. The offer was literally instantaneous. He was the third pick. New Haven. Suddenly, our son was all over the sports channels, all over social media, an overnight phenomenon, and that was when I knew that boy had given up the Oklahoma in him to become a New Englander. Everyone else loved him so much all at once, but I was in your boat.’ She smiles sadly. ‘I just hoped he still remembered us. Home.’

‘Mrs Bradley …’ She took the words right out of my mouth, honestly. I remember feeling deceived. Lied to. I had my own problems, but Colt parading around as if this town, these people, hadn’t cultivated his talent, made my skin crawl.

‘Then the injury happened.’ She presses her hands to her knees. ‘It was a long few months. After the complications and all. As quickly as he’d wanted to be in Boston back in high school, he wanted nothing more than to come home now. I wasn’t sure what had got into him, but I knew it was more than the bad knee. Except …’ With a forlorn laugh, she shakes her head, almost guiltily. ‘I was glad. I felt awful for it, but I was glad he finally wanted to be back. Is that so wrong?’

Maybe not, I want to say. I thought I was pissed he’d come back, and yet there were moments I was, as twisted as it was, grateful he was here. Grateful he’d helped us pick up the pieces of our house after the storm. Grateful he’d taped up my wrist for me. Was I grateful that he’d looked up at the crowd and kissed me, right in front of the whole town? That, I’m still working on figuring out. I think.

‘When he left the way he did,’ I finally say, ‘I wanted him to come back for a couple weeks afterward. I oscillated between this weird sense of longing and this red-hot anger. And then I accepted it. That was the way it would be. So when he did come back, I didn’t expect to feel … the same way as you, I guess.’