"Your mother," Mr. Calloway said, "is quite right. Booker, would you at least carry the young man's box to the bus stop?"
"Yes, sir," Booker said, and picked up the Del Monte box like it was full of feathers.
* * *
He told her at the kitchen table at four-thirty, with her coat still on.
He'd rehearsed it on the bus and on the walk up the hill, but when it came to it the words came out in the wrong order, the box and the man getting knocked down and the watch and the bench and the limousine all tangled together. His mother sat and listened. She didn't say anything. When he got to the part about the name—Calloway, Mr. Calloway—she put her hand flat on the oilcloth, and when he took out the card and laid it in front of her she didn't touch it. She looked at it like it might bite.
"He said to tell you he went home," Cal said. "He said to tell you that night he took your advice and went home. He said you'd know what it means."
His mother stood up. She walked to the sink and stood with her back to him and both hands on the edge of the counter. The faucet dripped. In the front room, Rosie was singing along to the radio, something by Madonna, getting all the words wrong.
"Mom?"
"I told you," his mother said, not turning around. "I told you not to talk to anybody."
"He was on the floor. Somebody knocked him down. Nobody was helping him. What was I supposed to do, walk past?"
"Yes," she said. "No." She put one hand over her eyes. "I don't know."
"Is it him? The man I'm named after?"
She didn't answer.
"Mom. Is it him?"