Chapter 25: The Waiver

Byron took the apple slice out of our daughter's fist with a hand that wasn't steady.

"Da," Poppy said again, pleased with herself, and banged the tray.

Nobody on the lawn had stopped clapping yet when a gray sedan came up the gravel road.

It had a dented fender and a rear window held with tape.

It stopped at the end of the row of parked cars, and the engine ran for a while before it shut off.

A woman got out of the driver's side in a nursing-home fleece and worn sneakers.

A tall boy got out of the other side in a football hoodie, with his hands jammed in the front pocket.

The woman looked over the lanterns, the tables and forty people holding paper plates.

Then she walked straight across the grass to Byron.

The boy followed her, three steps behind, looking at his shoes.

"Byron Angell," she said.

"Yes."

"You don't know me."

"I do," Byron said slowly. "Tara. You worked the cider stand. You left in August."

"I did."

"I thought you were mad at me."

"I was," said Tara. "I'm still not sure you didn't earn it."

She took a manila envelope out of her jacket and held it against his chest until he took it.

"That's a petition to establish paternity and set support. The county clerk stamped it Monday."

"Paternity of what?"

She turned her head and looked at the boy.

"Calvin," she said. "He's sixteen. Seventeen in June."

The lawn went silent.

I stood by the high chair with a plastic fork in my hand and Poppy's frosting on my sleeve.

The boy lifted his eyes for one second.

They were gray, the same gray I had seen in Poppy's face every morning for a year.

"No," Byron said. "That isn't possible. I'd have known."

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