“She forgave you,” I said.
“She wouldn’t have written that letter if she hadn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I knew her for forty-one years,” I said.
“She didn’t waste words on people she’d given up on.”
The back door opened again.
Paul stepped out, looked at us both, and sat down on the grass in front of the bench.
He crossed his legs.
He looked about twelve years old.
“Is it bad?” he asked, nodding at the letter in my hand.
“It’s honest,” I said.
“That’s worse.”
“Yes,” I said.
“It is.”
Paul was quiet for a moment.
Then: “I told my kids about you going back to school.
My youngest — Lily, she’s nine now — she told her class.
Her teacher asked her what her grandfather was studying, and she said she didn’t know, and she came home and called me and said, ‘Dad, you have to find out, because I want to tell them tomorrow.'”
