“Yeah,” Susan said and she got a look in her eyes that told Jimmy everything. She patted his arm and moved toward the kitchen. As she did, Jimmy got an idea. He walked into his room and found the box Susan had squirreled away. When he heard the shower stop upstairs, he gave David a couple of minutes to dress, then walked to his room and found him sitting on his bed. He knocked lightly on the wall and David looked up.

“Hey,” Jimmy said. “Can I show you something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Jimmy sat next to him and handed his son a photo. “You remember asking to see that when you were about eight?”

David took the photo and studied the faces in the picture. “Dad, is that Brian and Melissa?”

“Yeah. We stopped for lunch after we came back from church. And you asked us, out of the blue, if you could meet your birth mother.”

David nodded and seemed to recall the moment.

Jimmy continued. “And Mom said to you, ‘Well, what would you say to her if you got to meet her?’ And you said, ‘I would say, “Hi, my name is David.”’”

David laughed and kept staring at the picture.

“Then you asked us if we had a picture of them, so when we got home, I showed that to you. And you looked at it for a minute and you said, ‘Wow, they look like nice people.’ And you gave it back to me.”

“How old were they?”

“I think she was eighteen and he was seventeen. She was pregnant when she graduated. Think about that. Imagine how scared she must have been. And then, deciding to place you for adoption. It must have been the hardest decision of her entire life. But I’m so glad she did.”

David nodded, deep in thought, and Jimmy felt he could leave things right there, just let his son think about what he had said. But he felt compelled to share one more thing.

“David, God gave you to me and Mom as a gift. And you will always be our son.”

David looked up at him and Jimmy gave him a loving pat on his knee. Then he stood and walked out of the room.

CHAPTER 23

David rode with Nate to a burger joint in town they both liked. Nate wanted to know about his headaches and asked if he could see David’s scar.

“No, I’m not showing you my scar.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll take a picture and put it online.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Nate said. “Just joking. Come on, let me see.”

When David refused, Nate asked about David’s wrestling career and how he felt about giving it up. It felt good to process with someone his own age instead of his parents. When the conversation turned to David’s considering the speech tournament, Nate was all over it.