Mom Gave My Christmas Chair Away—Dad Found a Loan in My Name

He was quiet for a long time. Then he said he was sorry. I told him I believed he was sorry now. I couldn’t yet tell him what that would mean for us.

Dad moved into a small apartment that spring. He called me every Sunday, and he learned to listen when I told him I was still angry with him. We did not pretend his call on Christmas Eve erased the years before it.

My sister visited me in June. She brought a photograph she’d found in an old album: the two of us at our childhood kitchen table, paper crowns slipping over our eyes. We talked for a long time about the ways we had learned to keep Mom comfortable. She apologized again for the text. I believed her.

That December, I stayed home. Dad and my sister came to me. We made dinner in my apartment, with groceries each of us had paid for and more chairs than we needed.

Before we ate, Dad handed me a small box. Inside was the silver pen I had wrapped in my scarf the year before. I had left it in my suitcase at the hotel and mailed it to him afterward without a note. He’d had my name engraved on it as well as his.

“I use it for my Sunday crossword,” he said. “Thought you should try it.”

He pulled out the chair beside him.

I sat down. There was nothing on the seat, no note deciding who belonged there. When my sister asked me to pass the bread, I did, and then I stayed where I was.