I blink back tears. My chest aches from holding my breath. I want to run to my son, grab his arm, tell him it’s enough—but something stops me. Maybe it’s the way he stands, so tall and calm. He isn’t just doing this for himself. He’s doing this for me.
My father stares down at the photo again. I can see his hands shaking now. “She looks just like your grandmother in this,” he says, voice cracking. “Same stubborn chin. Same eyes.”
Then my father looks up—at me. His eyes find mine through the windshield. I don’t look away.
“Come inside,” he says, barely audible.
I open the car door but don’t move. “Why?”
“Because I’ve been waiting eighteen years to say I’m sorry.”
The words hang in the air like smoke. My legs feel heavy, like they’re made of concrete. I take a step. Then another. My son steps aside, letting me pass. My father doesn’t touch me—he just moves back, leaving the door wide open.
The house smells the same. Lemons and old books. The hallway rug hasn’t changed. Neither has the creak in the floorboards. But the man standing in front of me is not the one who pushed me out all those years ago.
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