47

As we got off the main road and into the thickness of the neighborhood, I began to recognize many of the front doors. That was something I never forgot—the color, the handle, the style of the cutouts.

It was where medics would wait before we were let inside, what we stared at until it swung open.

“That’s where I went to high school.”

I looked at the brick building he was pointing at and read the sign that was engraved by the entrance.

It was one of the roughest high schools in Massachusetts.

I never would have guessed this gentle man had graduated from there.

“That was my first job,” he said after he pulled back onto the street, and we were passing a convenience store. “I stocked the shelves. Three to six every morning with longer shifts on the weekends.”

I knew the store well. I’d worked on several patients in the parking lot.

He turned left at an upcoming Stop sign, and after two blocks, he pulled over again.

He was silent.

I didn’t look at him. I didn’t want to give him that kind o