Then I looked at my brother.
At the house behind me.
At the road beyond the gate.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
And for once that did not feel weak.
Daniel nodded slowly, as if he understood that honesty was not an invitation.
“Okay,” he said.
Then he stepped back from the gate.
Before he turned away, he hesitated.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
And this time he didn’t attach an excuse to it.
I watched him for a long moment, then shut off the intercom.
Not because I forgave him.
Not because I refused to.
Because I didn’t need that conversation in order to keep living.
Noah looked up at me.
“So that’s it?”
“No,” I said.
Because it wasn’t. It never would be.
Life doesn’t tie off emotional threads just because you’ve reached an ending. It only gives you the choice of which ones you still want to hold.
That evening Rachel came by again, carrying a bottle of wine she never explained. Noah let her in like she had always belonged there.
We sat in the kitchen while he did homework.
Pencil scratching paper.
The oven humming.
Conversation that asked for nothing dramatic.
At one point she looked at me and said softly, “You didn’t destroy them.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed.