noticed.”
“Did you know?”
He looked back down. “Then why wouldn’t she tell us?”
I sat across from him and said the only true thing I had.
“Because adults can do ugly, prideful things and then spend years not knowing how to fix them.”
He swallowed. “Did she love Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Then why stay away?”
I didn’t answer right away. I thought about that cold living room. Then I thought about Mrs. Whitmore crying over a fence Ethan had painted by hand.
“Did she love Dad?”
“Because loving someone and failing them can happen at the same time,” I said quietly.
He read the last line again.
“She wants to see us.”
“We’re going,” he said.
“What did yours say?” I’d asked quietly.
He stared out the window. “That she watched me become the kind of boy Dad had been.”
Neither of us said much after that.
“What did yours say?”
At the hospital, Officer Grant met us near the front desk.
“We’re just here to make sure she’s okay,” he said. “She’s awake, but she’s weak. Don’t tire her out. She kept asking if the boy next door had gotten her letter.”
Ethan nodded, clutching his letter so tightly, the paper had bent at the corners.
When we walked into the room, I finally saw her. I hadn’t recognized her while living beside her, but now, with the letter in my hand, I could see the woman from that spotless living room in the bones of her face.
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