His breathing stopped.
“No,” he whispered. “I know.”
When the call ended, I remained beside the telephone.
Daniel came into the room carrying two cups of tea.
“Was it hard?”
“Yes.”
“Did you forgive him?”
“No.”
He nodded.
“Not tonight.”
“Maybe someday.”
“Maybe.”
Daniel handed me the tea.
Outside, Ellie and Noah were racing across the lawn, their laughter rising into the warm evening. Their mother stood near the gate, uncertain until I lifted my hand.
She came inside.
We ate dinner together at the long kitchen table. Daniel burned the first loaf of bread, Noah spilled milk, and Ellie drew a picture of the house with yellow windows and a crooked blue roof.
At the bottom, she wrote:
GRANDMA’S HOUSE.
I looked at the words for a long time.
Not Daniel’s house.
Not Charles’s house.
Not Bradley’s house.
Mine.
Later, after the children left, Daniel and I stood on the porch. The rain had stopped. Water clung to the garden leaves, holding the last light of sunset.
“Do you regret coming here?” he asked.
I turned toward him.
“I regret that it took fifty years.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I looked through the window at the kitchen. Charles’s scarf hung beside the back door. The blue quilt was folded over a chair. Two cups waited on the table, and the deed rested safely in the desk drawer.
“No,” I said. “I don’t regret coming here.”
