For one second, I was ten years old again, sitting on my mother’s bed, watching her brush her hair while the locket glowed at her throat.
I covered my mouth.
My father stood. “I won’t ask for forgiveness today. I just wanted you to have what was always yours.”
After he left, I sat in the lobby for twenty minutes holding the locket.
Then my pager went off.
Life, rude and relentless, continued.
Healing with my father was not simple. It was not one apology and a violin soundtrack. We went to family therapy, just the two of us at first. He admitted things I needed to hear and things I hated hearing. I said things that made him cry and things that made me cry more. Sometimes I left sessions angry. Sometimes relieved. Sometimes emptier than before.
But he showed up.
Not perfectly.
Consistently.
That mattered.
Diane, my stepmother, did not.
read more in next page
