Those five words broke something in me.
How often had we thought that?
At nineteen, we thought sixty would wait forever.
At twenty, I thought there would always be another letter.
At thirty, I thought someday I’d stop wondering about him.
At forty, I imagined perhaps we’d meet accidentally in an airport.
At fifty, I decided some doors were meant to remain closed.
And Douglas had received three boxes of our missing past and thought he had time.
“I got sick fast,” he said. “Treatments. Hospitals. Margaret was already gone. Lucas had his own family. I kept thinking I’d get stronger first.”
Lucas looked at him.
“Dad.”
“I know.”
Something passed between them.
An old argument softened by love.
Then Douglas looked back at me.
“I didn’t want your first sight of me after forty years to be this.”
He gestured weakly toward the hospital room.
