He didn’t say a word for eleven miles.
Neither did I.
When we got home, I carried Mason up to bed and came back down.
Travis was sitting at the kitchen table. In the same chair he’d been sitting in on Tuesday.
The rose was lying in front of him on the oilcloth.
I put on a pot of decaf.
I didn’t ask him anything.
I sat down across from him, and I waited. The same way I’d waited all week.
Only this time, it didn’t feel like a test.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you Dad was coming,” I finally said. “I should have. I wanted you to decide on your own. But that wasn’t fair to you.”
He shook his head.
“You were right not to,” he said. “If you’d told me, I’d have done it for you. I needed to do it for her.”
