“Some people keep their promises, no matter what. Ray did.”

“She’s not Ray. She came here to spy on me.”

“She came to see if you were all right.”

“Well, I am. So she can go.”

“It’s harder to stay,” Phillip said quietly. “It takes more guts to stay. People are already talking about her. You know what that’s like, when people look at you out of the corners of their eyes and whisper.”

“Yeah. They’re just jerks.”

“Maybe, but it still stings.”

He knew it did, but he gripped his pencil more tightly, added pressure to his doodling. “You’ve just got a case on her.”

“I might. She sure is a looker. But if I do have a case on her, that doesn’t change the basic facts. Kid, you haven’t had that many people give a good damn about you in your life.”

He waited until Seth’s eyes slid over to his, held. “It took me a while, maybe too long, to give a good damn myself. I did what Ray asked me to, because I loved him.”

“But you didn’t want to do it.”

“No, I didn’t want to do it. It was a pain in the ass. You were a pain in the ass. But that started to change, little by little. I still didn’t want to do it, it was still a pain in the ass, but somewhere along the way I was doing it for you as much as for Ray.”

“You thought maybe I was his kid, and that pissed you off.”

So much, Phillip thought, for adults believing they kept their secrets and sins from children. “Yeah. That was one little angle I couldn’t get rid of until yesterday. I couldn’t accept the idea that he might have cheated on my mother, or that you might be his son.”

“But you put my name on the sign anyway.”

Phillip stared a moment, then let out a half laugh. Sometimes, he realized, you do what’s right without really thinking about it, and it makes a difference. “It belonged there, just like you belong here. And Sybill already gave a good damn about you, and now we know why. When somebody cares, it’s just plain stupid to push them away.”

“You think I should see her and talk to her and stuff.” He’d thought about it himself. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You saw her and talked to her before you knew. You could try it that way.”

“Maybe.”

“You know how Grace and Anna are all wired up about this birthday dinner of yours next week?”

“Yeah.” He lowered his head a little more so the huge grin didn’t show. He couldn’t believe it, not really. A birthday dinner and he got to pick the food, then like a party with pals the next day. Not that he was going to call it a party, because that was really lame when you were turning eleven.

“What do you think of asking her if she’d like to come over for that? The family dinner deal.”