“What would different look like?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said honestly. “Showing up on ordinary days might be a start. Not just the ones that make a good story.”
“I can try that,” he said quietly. “I don’t have a great track record with ordinary days. Never really practiced at it.”
“Neither did I, until recently,” I said. “Turns out it’s a skill like anything else.”
He didn’t have an immediate answer for that, and I didn’t rush him toward one, letting the silence do whatever work it needed to do between us.
We hung up without any promises attached, which felt, strangely, like the most honest conversation we’d had in years.
Mom was waiting in the kitchen when I hung up, pretending to wipe down a counter that was already clean.
“How was it?” she asked, not quite looking at me.
