“A little boy hugged Julian goodbye just as he was stepping outside, and the phone must have slipped right out of his jacket pocket. Nobody noticed until after everyone had left.”
I closed my eyes.
Every frightening possibility I had imagined began to dissolve.
Only one question remained.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Charlie did not answer right away.
Instead, he walked to his truck.
When he returned, he carried something small.
A faded green plastic dinosaur.
One googly eye had been replaced with green marker.
He placed it carefully in my palm.
“A little boy insisted that Daddy Dinosaur forgot this, so I brought it along.”
I stared at the toy.
Its tail had been taped back on.
The marker eye sat crooked.
It was obviously priceless to someone.
Charlie smiled.
“The little guy wanted me to make sure it found its way home too.”
My chest tightened.
“I can’t keep this,” I said.
Charlie shook his head.
“The boy said Daddy Dinosaur needed it more.”
I looked up.
“Why?”
“He said heroes always forget something.”
The lump in my throat became painful.
Charlie returned to his truck once more.
“This too.”
He handed me a construction-paper crown covered in yellow crayon and crooked stickers.
Across the front, written in oversized blue letters, were the words:
KING DINOSAUR
I laughed through tears.
Charlie smiled.
“They made him wear it yesterday. He tried taking it off. They voted against him.”
For the first time since hearing the words “visitation center,” I genuinely laughed.
Then I looked at the crown.
“Charlie, I told him once…”
The words escaped before I realized I was speaking.
“When we were dating.”
Charlie waited.
“I volunteered there during college. I came home crying. I told Julian it was the loneliest room I’d ever seen.”
The conversation suddenly returned to me clearly.
I’d said, “Nobody should have to wait for someone who might never come.”
Charlie nodded as though he had heard it before.
“I think he remembered.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“He told me something similar.” Charlie smiled. “He said if one child had somebody willing to show up every Thursday, maybe waiting wouldn’t feel quite so lonely.”
I blinked quickly against tears.
I had forgotten saying those words years ago.
Julian had not.
Charlie checked his watch.
“I should get going.”
“Thank you.”
“No.” He smiled. “Thank your husband.”
After he drove away, I stayed on the porch for several minutes.
Julian’s recovered phone rested in one hand.
The green dinosaur sat in the other.
I looked down at the paper crown.
KING DINOSAUR.
How many Thursdays had my husband quietly spent becoming someone a frightened child could rely on?
I picked up my phone and messaged him.
We need to talk when you get home.
He replied almost immediately.
Everything okay, Dani?
I looked at the dinosaur.
Come home safely. We’ll talk then.
—NEXT PAGE
