He was quiet for a long time.
“Then I watched your dad walk her out on that cane,” he said. “A seventy-nine-year-old man. Walking the whole length of that gym. And I thought, what in the world am I doing up here?”
He looked down at the rose.
“He showed up. That’s all a real dad is. The one who shows up. And I’ve been showing up for nine years, and telling myself it didn’t count.”
I reached across the table and put my hand over his.
His hands are rough. From the shed. From loading seed bags and fixing augers.
He turned his hand over. And he held on.
We sat there like that until Kaylee came home at eleven.
She came in through the back door in her warmup jacket. Her braid half undone. Smelling like pepperoni and the gym.
She stopped when she saw us at the table.
