Later, people told him the rest.
A pickup truck had run a red light on Interstate 90 during a rainstorm.
His mother died at the scene.
His father held on for six hours in the trauma unit at Rapid City Regional Hospital before his heart stopped.
Caleb did not remember saying goodbye.
That bothered him more than the leg.
The prosthetic leaned against the wall beside his dresser. It was a basic model, the one state insurance had covered two years earlier. It had fit when he was six. Now it dug into his skin after an hour of walking. He had grown three inches since the fitting, and the socket rubbed raw places into the stump until each step felt like a secret he had to hide.
Most days, he preferred the crutch.