Outside, the last few leaves were coming off the maple.
The street was empty.
From three houses down came the measured sound of someone raking.
I found my page.
And kept reading.
Brody came by three weeks later on a Sunday afternoon.
He knocked rather than using any code.
And that told me something before I even opened the door.
I brought him inside and put the kettle on.
He sat at the kitchen table with his coat still on.
The way people do when they’re not sure yet if they’ve earned the comfort of staying.
He had found a one-bedroom apartment in the north end of the city.
He had signed the lease himself based on what he and Maxine could manage on their own without any help from me.
And I could tell from the way he said it that this was deliberate.
That he had made a point of not asking.
They were moving in at the end of the week.
He also told me they had started seeing a counselor.
A couples counselor.
Sessions every other Thursday.
He had made it a condition.
He said this plainly.
Without apology or explanation.
The way someone delivers information about a decision that has already been made and does not require endorsement.
He wrapped both hands around his mug and looked at me the way he hadn’t in a long time.
Not the way a son looks at a complication he is managing.
The way a son looks at someone he has actually wronged.
“I should have said something the first week,” he said.
“When she moved things around in your pantry, I knew it wasn’t right.”
“And I said nothing because it was easier.”
“I kept doing that.”
He paused.
“I let it get to the point where she genuinely thought she could tell you to go sleep somewhere else.”
“And some of that is on her.”
“But a lot of it is on me.”
“Yes,” I said.
“It is.”
He nodded.
He didn’t try to soften it.
Or argue around it.
And that was the right response.
I told him I forgave him.
And I meant it.
He is my son.