Our only child, despite trying for more.
He was sweet, earnest, curious. Saturday mornings he sat on the porch steps beside Harold’s rocker with juice as Harold sipped his second cup. He questioned everything. Why is the sky blue. Why do roses have thorns. Why does Daddy drink two cups on Saturday.
Harold would point at the sign.
“Read it, Danny,” he’d say.
At six, Daniel sounded it out slowly.
Ev-er-y house needs a porch for the sec-ond cup.
“What does it mean?” Daniel asked.
“It means,” Harold said, “that home isn’t the house. It’s the place you don’t want to leave.”
Daniel read that sign every Saturday for twelve years.
I doubt he looked at it again.
Continue on the next page:
