He looked up at me.
“Do you forgive me?”
“I do,” I said. “I already have.”
“Then wasn’t that the hard part?”
I looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Forgiving me. Wasn’t that the hardest part of all this?”
I thought about that New Year’s Eve. The untouched glass of wine. Marjorie’s blinking lights. The canceled reservation. My mother in her quiet little house in Scranton, living alone for eleven years without complaint. And what I finally understood that to mean.
“No,” I said. “Forgiving you wasn’t the hard part.”
“Then what was?”
“Deciding I was worth more than what you were offering me,” I said. “And forgiving myself for taking so long to figure that out.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. The fire crackled. Penny sighed in her sleep on the couch.
“You’re my son,” I said. “And I love you. And those two things are never going to change. Not ever.”
He nodded. His eyes were wet.
“But I’m not the same person you were used to managing around,” I said. “I’m somebody else now.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
He looked at me. With something that might have been admiration. Or something very close to it.
“I can see that, Mom.”
“Good,” I said. “I’d like you to get to know her.”
He came for Christmas that year.
He called ahead this time. Two weeks ahead.
“Mom, would it be okay if we came to your house for Christmas? If you’re not busy? We’d love to. Only if you want.”
“I’d like that very much,” I said.
He arrived early on Christmas Day. He helped me set the table. He put out the place cards Penny had made with crayons. Five of them. One for me at the head of the table.
He didn’t check his phone once during dinner.
Penny sat right next to me. She told me all about a school project she was working on. Bird migration. Specifically herons.
“Grandma, did you know some herons fly more than a thousand miles?”
“I did not know that.”
“Will you read my report? When I finish the draft?”
“I’ll read every single word,” I said.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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