don’t understand all of it yet.” He glanced toward the yard, where Leo was now holding two boards in a crooked cross. “But I spent ten years letting pride cost me my daughter. I won’t spend another day letting pain decide what kind of man I am.”
My mother bowed her head.
A different kind of silence entered the house then.
Not the old silence of secrets.
A silence where healing had begun but did not yet know its shape.
The next unexpected turn came from Leo.
After dinner, while my parents washed dishes side by side in awkward cooperation, he tugged on my sleeve.
“Can I see my dad’s room?”
I glanced toward Diane and Paul’s house through the window. “At their house?”
He nodded.
“I want to know what he liked.”
So the next morning, Diane led us upstairs to Noah’s old bedroom.
She had changed almost nothing.