“I know,” my mother whispered through her hands.
“Then tell her.”
My mother lowered her hands. She looked up at me. Her eyes were red.
It took her a long time.
“I’m sorry, Emma,” she said. “You were never my regret. I was. I was my own regret, and I made you wear it.”
I didn’t say it’s okay. It wasn’t okay. I don’t know if it ever will be.
But I said, “Thank you for saying it.”
She nodded. She stayed for twenty minutes. She didn’t say much else. When she left, she stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked back at her father.
“Can I come next Sunday?” she asked.
Grandpa thought about it.
“Bring a pen,” he said. “The crossword’s hard this week.”
Grandpa lived two and a half more years.
We read all hundred and forty-one of his letters. And all twelve of mine. We finished the last one on a Sunday in October, on his porch, with the leaves coming down in the yard.
