What actually happened to my father?
And the answer, it turned out, had been driving past my house all summer, playing music, hoping I’d come to the window.
PART 4
Saturday. Noon. Riverside Park.
I brought Ellie.
I debated it for a long time. But she was already part of this — she’d been the bridge, the strawberry shortcake, the reason any of it happened — and I didn’t want to build my reunion with my father on the same thing my mother had built my childhood on.
A hidden truth.
I was done with those.
The ice cream truck was parked at the entrance, exactly where he’d said.
Walter stood beside it, no cap this time, in a pressed shirt, holding his hands together like a man at a job interview for the most important position of his life.
When he saw us walking up — me, and Ellie holding my hand — he made a sound I’ll never forget.
