I didn’t drive the car that night. It sat in the driveway, untouched, while everyone else went inside.
I stood at the window for a minute, watching it catch the porch light, trying to decide how I felt about something that expensive sitting there meaning almost nothing to me anymore.
I found Marcus in the garage around ten, sitting on an overturned bucket, staring at nothing in particular.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I keep thinking about the day I married your mom,” he said. “I promised myself I wouldn’t try to replace anyone. I just wanted to help, quietly, without making it a thing.”
“You didn’t replace anyone,” I said. “There wasn’t anyone there to replace. That’s kind of the problem I was trying to fix.”
He laughed, a wet, surprised sound.
“Your father used to call twice a year,” he said. “Birthday, sometimes Christmas. I always wondered if it bothered you, him being so far away but never quite gone.”
