“You may.”
“I’ll bring it back.”
“I know.”
He returned it to the shelf.
He had not really needed the screwdriver.
He had needed to touch something that had belonged to his father and discover that it could be borrowed without being taken.
At the front door, he put on his coat.
The children stirred upstairs, and Helen called that she would settle them before driving home.
Nathan paused with his hand on the doorknob.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for letting me come back slowly.”
I looked at him.
“You had to.”
“I know.”
He opened the door.
Cold air entered, carrying the clean scent of snow. The porch light cast a warm circle across the steps. Nathan walked to the car, then turned and looked back.
For a moment, he was eight years old again, standing beside Richard in the driveway while his father held a flashlight beneath the hood of the old station wagon.
I lifted my hand.
Nathan lifted his.
Then he got into the car and drove away.
I closed the door, checked the lock, and walked through the quiet rooms.
In the kitchen, the rosemary plant stood on the windowsill beneath the Christmas lights. Its leaves trembled whenever the furnace came on, but the plant remained upright.
I touched one small green sprig.
Then I turned off the dining room light and left the window glowing for the people who would come home to it.
For the first time since Richard died, the house did not feel like the place where his voice had disappeared.
It felt like the place where love had learned how to stay.
