But a few things changed in our house after that night. And I want to tell you about them. Because they’re the real ending.
He started coming to parent-teacher conferences with me.
For years he’d always waited out in the truck. He said the teachers only needed one of us.
Now he comes inside. He sits in those tiny plastic chairs. And he asks Kaylee’s chemistry teacher about her grades.
The Saturday after senior night, he drove out to my father’s place and spent the whole afternoon fixing the latch on the machine shed door.
It had been sticking since August.
Dad hadn’t asked him to. He just went.
Dad told me later they didn’t talk much.
They fixed the latch. They sat on the tailgate of Travis’s pickup and drank coffee out of Dad’s old green thermos.
And Dad said, “She’s a good girl.”
