He stood at the bottom of the porch steps for a moment, looking up at the house like he was seeing it through new eyes. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his windbreaker, his hair blowing in wisps around his forehead.
“Hey,” I said from the porch, closing the screen door behind me.
“Hey,” he replied.
We stared at each other for a beat, then at the roses. They were starting to perk up, new buds appearing where the damage had been worst.
“I’ve been a fool,” he said quietly. “For a long time.”
I didn’t rush to contradict him. He seemed to need to say it out loud.
“I let Victoria…” He exhaled, shoulders slumping. “I let her make me forget what was important. Your mother. You. This place. I thought I was just trying to move forward, to survive the loss. But somewhere along the way, I stopped looking at what I was walking toward and just kept my eyes shut.”
He looked up at me, his eyes red-rimmed. “Your mother would be so disappointed in me.”
“She’d be frustrated,” I admitted. “But disappointed? I don’t know. She understood more than you think.”
I held up the letters.