finished, he said, “I was angry for a long time.”
My mother nodded.
“You had every right to be.”
“I imagined you many ways,” he continued. “Cruel. Dead. Rich and ashamed. Poor and trapped. Sometimes I imagined you as someone who looked for me every day and just couldn’t find me.”
My mother’s lips trembled.
“I should have looked.”
“Yes,” Daniel said gently. “You should have.”
She bowed her head.
Then he added, “But you’re here now.”
My mother looked up.
Daniel held out his hand.
She took it.
Watching them, I understood something I had not wanted to understand before.
Forgiveness was not a door that opened once.
It was a road.
Sometimes narrow.
Sometimes steep.
Sometimes walked in silence.
But still a road.
Weeks later, Leo and I returned home.
Not because the story was over.
Because life was waiting.
School. Work. Bills. Laundry. Science fair forms. Ordinary
