Three weeks passed. Then a month.
Evelyn didn’t call. She sent Oliver a birthday card in November for his half-birthday, a tradition she’d started when he was a baby. It was addressed to him, with a ten-dollar bill inside. The card had a cartoon puppy on it and said, Missing you, sweetheart. Love, Grandma.
I read it first, before I gave it to Oliver. There was nothing in it about college or me or his birth. Just Missing you.
I gave it to him.
He read it at the kitchen table, then looked up at me.
“Why doesn’t Grandma come over anymore?”
I took a breath.
“Grandma made a mistake,” I said. “A big one. It hurt some people’s feelings. And when you make a big mistake, sometimes you need some time apart to think about it.”
“Did she hurt your feelings?”
“Yes.”
He considered that. “Did she say sorry?”
“Not yet.”
He thought about it some more.
“When I hurt Tyler’s feelings on the bus, I had to say sorry,” he said. “Even though I didn’t want to.”
“That’s right.”
“Maybe Grandma doesn’t know how to say sorry,” Oliver said. “Maybe nobody ever made her.”
I stared at my eight-year-old son.
“Maybe,” I said. “That’s very wise, Oliver.”
He shrugged and put the ten-dollar bill in his piggy bank.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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