“Because you’re a time traveler,” he adds quickly. “We call each other family.”

Not because I have your son’s organ inside of me?

“I got you.”

The awkwardness is heavy in the air for half a minute before I decide to break it.

“I want to say it again, Mr.—Greg.”

Greg’s brow furrows.

“To say thank you.” I gesture to my abdomen. “For giving me this. For saving my life. I know it probably—”

Greg holds his hand up again. But this time, he doesn’t speak. He shuffles past me, squats down, and opens a box. He sifts through it, pulling out folders and books and carefully stacking them until he finds what he wants. Using his palm, he slowly, carefully wipes it clean and passes it to me.

Another photo album. “David was always helping people. It’s all he wanted to do in his life. In fact, he didn’t care about being able to time travel, because he couldn’t fix the wrongs of the past.

“That said, the fact that you have his organ, is, in a sense, David doing what he always wanted to do. Helping someone. I know, deep down, that this is what David was always destined to do. Help. And he’ll help you every day. He found a purpose in a way that some—most—people never do. And I couldn’t be prouder.

“So…” He hurries back to his chair and sits down, resting his elbows on his knees. “Tell me everything about you. Your passions, what you like, your schooling, where you want to go to college, if you want to go to college, what you want to do when you grow up. As little or as much as you’re willing to tell me. I want to know. I like to know everything about my friends and those who might one day be part of my family.”

If some random man came up to me and asked me to tell him everything about me because he wanted to be friends, I’d probably kick him in the balls and run in the opposite direction.

But Greg McIntyre isn’t a random man. He’s a man grieving the loss of his son in the only way he knows how: talking to the one connection to his dead child. And perhaps in some twisted, deep-down, backward way, he feels guilty. Maybe he hasn’t had time to grieve yet.

But I can help ease that grief, and as Greg said, David only ever wanted to help people.

Maybe I can take a bit of that burden, of that life mission, and help someone right now.

And so I sit down and tell him everything that makes me me.

* * *

Dinner with the McIntyres isn’t nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. And the food isn’t bad either.