"Say what?" he said softly.
"You heard me."
Cal found his voice. "He called you Calloway," he said to the man. "He called you Mr. Calloway."
"Yes." The man took a breath. He took off his hat and set it on the bench beside him, and smoothed his white hair with one hand, and then he took off his dark glasses too, and folded them, and Cal saw his eyes. They were pale blue, and open, and they didn't look at anything. They were pointed in Cal's direction, but they didn't land on him; they sort of rested in the air near his face, the way your eyes rest when you're thinking about something far away. "That's my name. Leland Calloway. And I think—I believe—I may be the reason it's yours."
Out in the bays, the Harrisburg bus started its engine.
"I don't understand," Cal said.
"No. Of course not. I'm not sure I do." Mr. Calloway turned the folded glasses over in his fingers. "I'm going to ask you to do something for me, and you can say no. I would like you to go home and tell your mother you met me. Tell her you met a blind man on the bench at Gate Seven. Tell her his name. And tell her—" His voice went rough again, and he stopped, and started over. "Tell her I went home. That night. Tell her I took her advice and I went home. She'll know what that means. Or she won't, and I'm a foolish old man and I've upset a child in a bus station for nothing, and I apologize. But if she knows—" He stopped again. "Booker, do I have a card?"
Booker dug in his jacket and came out with a small white card and held it out, not to Mr. Calloway but to Cal. Cal took it. It was heavy, thick paper, cream-colored, and on it in raised black letters it said LELAND R. CALLOWAY and under that an address in Sewickley Heights and a phone number. Under the print there was a row of little raised dots. Cal ran his thumb over them.
"That's Braille," Mr. Calloway said, hearing the sound, maybe, or just knowing. "It says the same thing. Tell her she can call. Any time. Or not. Tell her it's up to her. Will you do that?"
"Okay," Cal said.
"Thank you." Mr. Calloway put his glasses back on. He seemed to get smaller, sitting there. "Booker will drive you home. With your box."
Cal looked out the window at the long black car, at the cab drivers still standing around it. He thought about pulling up on Brereton Street in that. He thought about Mr. Wozniak on his porch, and Mrs. Washington in her window, and Travis Kolb's big brother, who hung around outside Pulaski's on Saturdays. He thought about his mother's face. You don't talk to anybody weird.
"No thank you," he said. "I'll take the bus. My mom said."
There was a pause. Then Booker laughed, one short surprised bark, and put his cap back on. Mr. Calloway's face moved in a way Cal didn't understand at first. It took him until later, on the bus, to figure out that the old man had been trying very hard not to cry.