When Ryan pulled up with a screech to the small yellow house with the little pots of yellow marigolds yawning up at the blue Texas sky, Neil wondered what it would be like, if his limbs would snap or if his bones would break from the sheer weight, the pressure of being made whole for the first time in his life—because always he’d felt incomplete, like he was half man, half beast. Once he met his dad, he might actually feel human, and the thought of it—like an impoverished child not wanting to get too comfortable with the promise of a full belly—scared him.
With Neil feeling too weak, too faint to do much but stand on two legs, Ryan was the one who rapped at the screen until a short elderly woman pulled open the door.
“Can I help you?” The old woman’s face was thin and weather-beaten, but
