He froze.
Then carefully placed one arm around her.
“Thank you for not letting him take me.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“You don't owe me thanks.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, kiddo.”
He looked at her.
“That's what family is supposed to do.”
Chloe got into the car.
Sarah stood beside Marcus for another moment.
“You should read the letter.”
“I will.”
“There was one sentence Evan wrote on the outside of the second page.”
Marcus looked at her.
She had apparently read it.
“What sentence?”
Sarah hesitated.
“I think you need to see it yourself.”
That evening, Marcus returned to the small house he had lived in for thirty-three years.
He placed Evan's letter on the kitchen table.
For nearly an hour, he simply looked at it.
Then he made coffee he didn't drink.
He walked into the garage.
Evan's old socket set still occupied the bottom drawer of the workbench.
Marcus had never moved it.
At last, near midnight, he sat down beneath the yellow kitchen light and opened the envelope.
The first page began simply.
Dad,
Marcus stopped breathing.
He forced himself onward.
Evan wrote about their argument.
About pride.
About wanting to come home without feeling as though coming home meant surrendering his own dreams.
He wrote about Sarah.
He wrote about the baby.
He wrote that he was frightened, excited, and completely unprepared.
Then Marcus unfolded the second page.
Across the top, in Evan's hurried handwriting, were the words Sarah had remembered.
Marcus read them.
Once.
Twice.
Then his hand covered his mouth.
“If I don't figure out how to say this right, just know I want my child to have you in their life.”
Marcus bowed his head over the letter.
For eight years, he had believed his son died angry with him.
For eight years, he had lived beneath the weight of a final conversation that wasn't actually final.
Because Evan had tried to come home.
And somewhere in the world, all those years Marcus had been grieving the family he lost, part of that family had been growing up without him.
His phone vibrated.
A message from Sarah.
Chloe finally fell asleep. She asked if she can see you tomorrow.
Marcus stared at it through blurred eyes.
Then another message appeared.
There's one more thing I haven't told you about Evan.
Marcus's fingers hovered over the screen.
Sarah typed for a long time.
Finally, the message came.
And I think it may change what you thought happened during the last months of his life.
Marcus looked toward his son's photograph on the wall.
The night suddenly felt very quiet.