“Later?”
Jonah nodded.
They did not pull it that day.
Something about waiting felt right.
Over the next months, the cousins rebuilt their relationship in awkward pieces. Diane’s son admitted that he had benefited from Jonah being treated differently. If Jonah was clearing plates, he was not. If Jonah was blamed for slowing dinner, nobody was looking at the video game left running in the living room.
“I knew it was unfair,” he said once.
Jonah looked at him. “Why didn’t you tell?”
His cousin stared at the floor. “Because then she might make me do it.”
Jonah appreciated the ugly honesty more than a cleaner excuse.
“Yeah,” he said.
His cousin added, “That was still bad.”
“Yeah.”
They kept playing cards.
Walt apologized in his own way.
He began showing up.
On Tuesdays he met Jonah at the bus stop with a thermos of terrible cocoa. On Sundays he asked Jonah where he wanted to sit before choosing his own chair. If Jonah offered to carry something heavy, Walt sometimes said yes and sometimes said no, but he always asked whether Jonah actually wanted to help.
One afternoon, Jonah asked why Walt kept doing that.
“Because your aunt made work into a test of whether you deserved to belong,” he said. “I don’t want you confusing the two.”
Jonah thought about that for a long time.
His mother arranged counseling through the rehabilitation center’s employee assistance program. Jonah did not like the first counselor. He told his mother so after two visits.
She changed counselors.
That mattered almost as much as the counseling itself.
The second counselor helped Jonah notice how often he apologized before asking for anything. He apologized for being thirsty. He apologized for needing help with homework. He apologized if the bus was late even though he was on the bus.
They turned it into a game at home.
Every time Jonah started a sentence with “Sorry” when no apology was needed, his mother lifted one finger.
Jonah began doing it to her too.
She was worse than he was.
By February, they could make each other laugh simply by raising a finger across the kitchen.
Diane’s sons continued visiting Walt and occasionally Jonah’s house. Diane stayed away for nearly three months.
Then she wrote Jonah a letter.
