PART 12
Dad came without cookies.
He stood on the same porch with his cap in both hands and looked at the crooked step as if it might give him a script.
“I should have called,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I have been saying boys fight since you were little. It was what my father said.”
“It was wrong then too.”
He nodded.
“Is he sleeping?”
“Some.”
“Can I see him?”
“Not today.”
He accepted that faster than Mom had. Maybe guilt is clearer when it does not have a social calendar attached.
“I told your mother I would not be part of any story that says the little one started it,” he said. “I should have told her that while he was still on the carpet.”
“Yes.”
He put his cap on, then took it off again.
“I am sorry.”
Sorry does not knit bone. It can, if it is followed by different behavior, keep the next bone from breaking.
“Show it by backing the safety plan,” I said. “Do not host secret visits. Do not call my son dramatic. Do not ask me to soften the report.”
“I can do that.”
“Then do it where she can hear you.”
He looked at his car, then at me.
“I will.”
After he left I stood in the doorway and listened to my son’s show playing softly. For the first time since Saturday, the house felt like a house again and not a crime scene I had brought home with me.
