Hard conversations.
Questions nobody is punished for asking.
After dinner, Ethan helped Daniel with the dishes.
Lily disappeared upstairs.
Rebecca and I sat at the table.
She looked toward her children.
“Ethan got his tuition statement yesterday.”
“I know.”
“He showed me.”
I waited.
“He didn’t have to.”
“No.”
“I think he wanted me to see it.”
“Probably.”
Rebecca swallowed.
“I wanted to cry.”
I looked at her.
“Because of the amount?”
She shook her head.
“Because it was being paid from the account.”
I understood.
For most parents, a tuition bill was frightening.
For Rebecca, it was proof that the money had finally become what it was supposed to be.
Education.
Opportunity.
A future.
Not marble.
Not Cabo.
Not a handbag.
She looked at me.
“Do you think Robert would hate me?”
The question startled me.
I pictured my husband.
His stubborn chin.
His terrible jokes.
The way he could stay angry for exactly twenty minutes before asking whether anyone wanted coffee.
“No,” I said.
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
“He would be furious with you.”
She gave a broken laugh.
“I figured.”
“He would probably give you a lecture so long you’d consider moving to another state.”
That made her laugh harder.
Then I became serious.
“But Robert cared more about what people did after they failed than about pretending they never failed.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
That was all I gave her.
It was also more than I could have given her a year earlier.
When I left that night, Daniel walked me to my car.
“You okay driving?”
“I am not ninety.”
“You say that every time I ask.”
“And I’ll continue saying it until I am ninety.”
He smiled.
Before I opened the door, he hugged me.
“Thank you.”
I knew what he meant.
Still, I said, “For what?”
“For not dropping it.”
I looked back at the small house.
Through the window, I could see Rebecca gathering plates.
Ethan was teasing Lily.
The light above their ordinary kitchen table was slightly crooked.
“For a while,” Daniel said, “I wished you hadn’t found out.”
“I know.”
“Then I realized what I actually wished was that it hadn’t happened.”
“That is very different.”
He nodded.
“If you hadn’t asked…”
He stopped.
He didn’t need to finish.
