Page 140 of Roadrunner

I didn’t say anything. There was nothing yet to say.

“I watched you in that kitchen tonight,” he said finally. “With Arthur talking about carburetors, and Della handing out plates like she was born doing it, and that man listening to my grandson like he’d invented conversation.” His voice caught, and this time he didn’t try to smooth it over. “I don’t know how I missed for so long that this was the better life. I think the truth is I didn’t miss it. I think I made myself scarce so I wouldn’t have to watch you build it without me, and I called that distance concern, and I never once looked hard enough at why leaving felt easier than staying.”

I chewed on his little speech for a while and then let out a long breath.

“I don’t forgive you,” I said. “I want you to hear that plainly, because I think you’d believe almost anything easier than the truth right now. The truth is I don’t know when I will, or whether all of it is even mine to forgive.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Alex

Now

The night before the wedding Arthur knocked on my bedroom door.

“Come in,” I said.

He came in and sat on the edge of the bed the way he had since he was small. He looked at the dress hanging on the back of the door. At the shoes on the floor beneath it.

“You nervous?” he asked.

“No.”

He looked at me.

“A little,” I admitted.

“Riley isn’t,” he said. “I asked him.”

“When did you ask him?”

“This afternoon. We were in the garage.”

I laughed. “Where else would you be?”

He looked at his hands. “He said the only thing he’s ever been nervous about in his life was whether you were going to come back.”

I looked at him.

“He said once you came back there was nothing left to be nervous about,” Arthur said. He looked up. “I thought you’d want to know that.”

I pressed my lips together. “Thanks, bud.”

He stood up. He looked at the dress one more time. “It’s a good dress.”

“Thank you.”

He went to the door. He stopped with his hand on the frame. He turned back. “Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad you went to Arizona. The first time. When you were nineteen.” He looked at the floor, the way he did when a thing mattered enough that looking at me while he said it felt like too much. “Two flat tires and everything.”

I stared at him.

“Because if you didn’t,” he said, “you wouldn’t have met him.” He shrugged one shoulder, quick, like he wanted the sentence over with. “And then there wouldn’t be me.” Another shrug. “I don’t know. Good thing, I guess.”

He went to bed.