“Then why is it here now?”
“Because Lucas brought my things from home after I was admitted. He found the box in the back of the desk drawer.”
Lucas came back into the room.
“The doctor wants Dad to rest,” he said gently. “He can have visitors again tomorrow.”
Douglas nodded.
I turned to him.
“If I go to the cottage, will you tell me everything?”
“I’ll tell you what I remember.”
“And if I find something you don’t know about?”
His eyes held mine.
“Then we’ll find out together.”
There was no promise in those words, not the kind we had made at nineteen beneath the bleachers. It was quieter than that. More cautious. A promise between two people who had learned that love could survive silence but not without scars.
Lucas walked me to the elevator.
For a while, we said nothing.
Then he said, “He didn’t know if you would come.”
