“Who sent you?” I asked. “What do you want from me?”
He looked down at his boots for a long time. When he finally looked up, his eyes were wet.
“Nobody sent us, ma’am. I came on my own. Because the boy who broke your wrist is my son.”
I didn’t lower the gun.
I want to be honest about that, because people who hear this story later always want me to say I knew right away he was a good man. I didn’t know anything. All I knew was that the person who left me bleeding on my own kitchen floor had a father, and that father was sitting on my porch steps with five friends asleep in my driveway.
“Then you can take your friends and go,” I said. “I don’t want anything from your family.”
He nodded slowly, like he’d expected that. He didn’t stand up.
