That he knew to ask. That he knew, on some level, that I would carry that tradition along, from my father to Jason through me. That he knew me well enough, even after so few days, to guess I’d been counting down to Jason’s seventh birthday, when Savannah said he was finally big enough to spend a handful of hours out in the fields, dressed up in a snow parka and clutching a thermos of hot chocolate. I was burning up all over again, about to leap out of my own bones.
