Mom scrolls through her Starbucks app until she finds our card’s amount. “Eh, maybe just a tall,” she groans.

“Use the free drink reward.”

“Oh, no—”

“You’re gonna go through a whole shift with just that little wiener-sized tall coffee?”

“Connor!” Mom shrieks quietly, scandalized but delighted at my G-rated swearing. “I’ll just use the Keurig in the break room.”

“You said it’s broke and they’re in no rush fixing it, now come on, just take it, it’s free.”

“I said no; I’m saving the reward for your birthday.”

“Well, I don’t deserve all that.”

It slipped out before I realized I meant it. Our eyes find each other as seriousness rapidly fills the space that moments ago had been nothing but lighthearted. Her dark-circled eyes soften; her head tilts as if to say, My poor baby. I don’t mind her response—my mother’s pity and empathy are all the stitches I currently need on my sliced-up heart.

“Don’t ever say that,” she whispers, taking my hand across the table. I almost gasp, it’s been so long since she’s done this. “You’ve had a tough time at school, and I see you trying. Everybody’s got tough times. Lord knows I have. You’ve got a work ethic, Connor, and that counts for something. You’re gonna make such a good da—”

My hand turns cold and limp inside hers as she stops herself.

A good dad.

She doesn’t mean “a good dad” as in “someday,” she means as in next week when Vicky is due to have her baby. Mom slowly withdraws her hand from mine, as if loving me is a big-ticket purchase she’s changed her mind about buying. She counts out cash for the tip and mutters, “I was reading an article saying it’s good luck for dads and sons to have birthdays so close together…”

I turn as stony and quiet as a grave until a dreadful idea strikes me: If I came out, that would kill this conspiracy theory that I’m Vicky’s baby daddy good and quick.

“Momma…?” I ask, my terrified throat clotted with a thick residue of milkshake.

“Yes…?” she asks, her voice engorging with hope.

Say it, Major. End this bullshit and say it.

“I forgot,” I choke out as the door to the diner swings open on a ring-a-ling bell.

Every head in the room turns toward the enormous, bearded raven standing alone in the doorway, as if all the lights had gone out except in this one spot. For one startling moment, the Reverend Stanley Packard holds the diner’s breath in his hands. His narrowed eyes appraise us through glasses perched above a beard so full it might be carved out of solid oak. As a short man myself, the Reverend’s proportions never cease to stun me silent. He has to duck slightly to clear the top of the door and enter diagonally to accommodate the belly stretching the buttons of his black pastor’s shirt. The white thumbprint of a clerical collar clamps around his reddening throat.