During eight months of divorce proceedings, he’d never once told me what to do.
He’d driven me to hearings.
Let me stay in my childhood bedroom.
Made grilled cheese sandwiches when I couldn’t eat anything else.
And listened while I cried.
He’d never said he told me so, even though he’d never been particularly fond of Brian.
When Dad entered the living room that afternoon, he stopped.
His eyes moved from the hole near the fireplace to the damaged hallway.
Then he looked down.
At Grandma Lena’s mirror.
He walked over and slowly lowered himself to his knees.
For a long moment, he simply studied the broken frame.
Then he touched the chipped wooden rose.
Very gently.
“He knew what this meant to you,” Dad said.
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
It was the first openly critical thing he’d said about Brian throughout the divorce.
