“I’ll bring you the form Monday,” Tyler said.
Brent nodded.
Then he turned to my father.
“Mr. Lindqvist,” he said. His voice cracked. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
Dad looked up at him from the ground.
“Help me up,” Dad said. “My knees don’t work like they used to.”
Brent reached down and took my father’s hand and pulled him up off the gravel. Slowly. Carefully. Dad was wobbly. Brent held his elbow until he was steady.
“Thank you,” Dad said.
They stood there, the two of them. My seventy-nine-year-old father in his faded blue work shirt with dirt on his knees. And the man in the expensive bathrobe who’d tried to make him tear out his garden.
“Mr. Lindqvist,” Brent said again.
“Arne.”
“Arne. Is there anything… is there anything I can do? Anything at all?”
