“No.”
She looked at me. “I should have asked.”
“You were six.”
“Still.”
I returned the photo to the box.
“We can ask each other now.”
Her eyes filled, but she smiled.
“That sounds fair.”
At three-thirty, my parents prepared to leave.
Mom stood on the porch, coat buttoned high. Only a few boxes sat in the truck.
Dad held the reel.
“You’ll call if you need anything?” Mom asked.
The ordinary question nearly angered me.
I realized she wasn’t seeking reassurance, only some small role left in my life.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I understand.”
Dad looked at the house. “Your grandfather was good to you.”
“Yes.”
“I should have been better.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he said.
“I’m not sure forgiveness is something I can promise.”
“I know.”
“But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life carrying this.”
His face tightened. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to remember what happened without letting it decide everything that happens next.”
“That sounds like something Arthur would say.”
“It sounds like something I learned from him.”
Mom pulled a folded paper from her purse.
“I found this in an envelope at home,” she said. “It’s the letter I was holding in the photograph.”
“You kept it?”
“For twenty-five years.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
She held it out.
I took it but did not open it.
“Is it an apology?”
“It was supposed to be a promise.”
“That you would come back?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because every year it became harder to explain why we hadn’t come sooner. Eventually, I thought you would hate me less if I stayed away.”
The truth was sad enough to believe.
“I didn’t need you to be less ashamed,” I said. “I needed you to be my mother.”
She nodded through tears.
“I know.”
But I let her enter once more for the china bowl.
The truck rolled away. Claire stayed beside me until it disappeared, then exhaled.
“I thought I would feel relieved.”
“Do you?”
“A little.” She looked at the house. “And guilty.”
“Why?”
“Because they are still our parents.”
“Both things can be true.”
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose they can.”
At four, Daniel’s car entered the café lot.
He arrived with a woman about my age and a little girl clutching a yellow bear. The child stayed close to her mother as Daniel searched the lot.
