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"Yeah." I don't trust myself with anything more. Neither of us moves.

Then Diego takes his hands out of his pockets. One step, that's all, but it's toward me. I take one too. He holds out his hand at the same moment I start to reach for him. We both stop. Diego looks at his hand. I look at him. Then, somehow, we both laugh. It's awkward and unsteady and exactly what this moment probably should be.

I take his hand. He grips mine. For a second, I think that's going to be it. Then Diego steps closer. I don't know if he moves first or I do. Maybe it doesn't matter. The handshake turns into a hug that isn't quite a hug at first, one arm, shoulders bumping, neither of us seeming to know where the other one is supposed to go. Then his other arm comes around me. Mine closes around him.

And that's it. He's my son. Twelve years don't disappear. Nothing is fixed. But I'm holding him.

My eyes close. My hand settles against the back of his shoulder. For one second, I can almost feel the eight-year-old boy inside the man standing here. The boy I remember. The man I don't know yet. Both of them my son.

"Diego." It's all I can say. His grip tightens. I hold on for another second. Then he pulls back. I let him.

His eyes are wet. So are mine. Neither of us pretends otherwise.

"I don't really know what I'm doing," he says.

A laugh catches somewhere in my chest. "Me neither." That gets the smallest smile from him. It's enough.

I wipe a hand over my face. "Did you drive from Boston?"

"Yeah."

"Today?" He nods.

"You hungry?" The question comes out before I think about it. Diego laughs, a real one this time. "A little." Of course. My son drives all the way from Boston to meet me after twelve years, and the first useful thing I can think to do is feed him. Maybe some things are inherited.

"Come on." I start toward the doors, then stop. Diego almost walks into me.

"What?"

I look at him. There are a thousand things I want to ask. Where he lives. What he likes. Whether he still hates peas. Whether he remembers the fishing pole I bought him when he was seven. Whether he knows I never stopped thinking about him. Not now. Maddy's words come back to me.

Don't try to make up twelve years in one day. Start with the day he gives you.

I look at Diego. "You like barbecue?"

He smiles. "Yeah."

I open the barn door. "Good."

And for the first time in twelve years, I walk into the daylight beside my son.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Javier

The sunlight feels too bright when Diego and I step out of the barn. For twelve years, my son has existed in photographs, memories, and whatever pieces of his life I could find from a distance. Now he's walking beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. I keep looking at him. I try not to. I'm not very good at it.

Diego catches me somewhere between the barn and the food tents. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You keep looking at me."

"Sorry." His mouth lifts slightly.

"It's okay." I shove my hands into my pockets.

"You said you were hungry."