⸻
Then he reached into the box one final time and pulled out something different — a small wooden heart, considerably more polished than the others, clearly the piece he’d spent the most careful time on.
⸻
He turned it over slowly, and even from the wings, I could see something carved into the back of it, small, careful letters he must have practiced for weeks to get right.
⸻
“I don’t have a job,” he said, his voice thinner now, working harder to hold steady. “I don’t take art class. I don’t have money like some of the other kids up here tonight. This is the only thing I have to give you.”
⸻
He looked directly out into the crowd, right toward where he somehow knew I was standing, even though the stage lights should have made that nearly impossible to see clearly.
⸻
“Sorry it’s the only thing I have to give you,” he said. “I love you.”
⸻
The room didn’t just applaud. It rose, nearly all four hundred people standing at once, a sound considerably louder and considerably longer than anything the framed portrait or the shadow box had received earlier that evening.
I walked out onto that stage myself, barely able to see through my own tears, and knelt down in front of my little brother right there in front of everyone, pulling him into a hug tight enough that I heard him laugh, surprised, against my shoulder.
⸻
“You didn’t have to apologize,” I told him, quiet enough that only he could hear it over the applause. “This is the best gift anyone gave anyone tonight. I mean that completely.”
