5“Took you long enough,” Woody said. He opened the door to the apartment wider. “We were starting to wonder if they locked you up.” His orange-red hair stuck up in punkish tufts and I heard rawness under his words, that sore-throated rasp that afflicts boys when their voices begin to deepen.
I tried to hide the goofy expression I felt taking over my face. Woody was embarrassed now by my doting, you-are-the-best-boy-in-the-world look. But when I saw him, I couldn’t stop myself from beaming foolishly. I had no nieces or nephews. Woody was the only baby I’d held more than once, the only boy I’d watched grow toward manhood. Maybe other kids were as neat. I didn’t know. He was my sole research subject and I was helplessly in love with him.
I stepped past him into the front room, the whitewash
