one rushed to comfort him.
Some regrets need room to breathe.
Later, after Leo fell asleep on the couch under a quilt my mother had made years ago, the three of us sat in the dim kitchen.
The house was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator.
My father turned his coffee mug in slow circles.
“I was angry back then,” he said. “Not just at you. At everything. Work was bad. Money was tight. I thought if I controlled the house tightly enough, nothing could fall apart.”
“But it did,” I said.
“Yes.”
My mother stared into her tea. “I wanted to call you after you left.”
I looked at her.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because every day I waited, it became harder. Then your father said you needed to learn responsibility. Then the days became weeks.”
“And then years,” I said.
She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks. “
