“Fair?” I laughed. “I walked eighty-two feet toward my husband while 200 people looked at the empty seats where my parents should have been. You don’t get to talk about fair.”
Dr. Rivera leaned forward. “Raymond, Carolyn, if you want a relationship with your daughter, it starts with Nathan. You will apologize to him. Not a ‘we’re sorry if you were offended’ apology. A real one. And then, you go on probation.”
“Probation?” my father asked.
“Six months,” I said. “You show up when I ask. You leave when I ask. You don’t offer opinions on our life, our house, or our kids if we have them. You earn your way back into this family, because as of March 28th, you’re not part of it.”
The session lasted ninety minutes. It was brutal. It was the sound of an old hierarchy being dismantled and a new one being built on the rubble.
As we walked to the parking lot, my father extended his hand to Nathan.
“Nathan,” he said, his eyes meeting Nathan’s for the first time without disdain. “I’m sorry. I was a small man, and I let my pride blind me to the man you actually are.”
Nathan looked at his hand. He didn’t shake it. Not yet.
“I appreciate the words, Raymond,” Nathan said. “But I’m an electrician. I know that a circuit doesn’t work just because you flip the switch. You have to make sure the wiring is solid. We’ll see how the wiring looks in six months.”
Chapter 8: The Sunset on Providence Harbor
One week later, the four of us—Nathan, me, Joanna, and her husband Tim—walked along the water in Providence.
The sun was dipping below the horizon, painting the harbor in streaks of gold and bruised purple. It was quiet. No cameras, no viral videos, no Dr. Rivera. Just four people trying to figure out how to be adjacent to one another.
“Your mom talks about you every day,” Tim said to Nathan as they walked a few paces ahead of Joanna and me. “Even when she thought you’d never see her again. She kept your baby shoes in a cedar box under the bed.”
Nathan looked at the water. “She should have sent them to me.”
“She was afraid,” Tim said. “Fear does weird things to people. It makes them leave when they should stay. It makes them stay silent when they should speak.”
Nathan slowed down. He turned to Joanna, who was trailing slightly behind, looking at the seagulls.
“Joanna,” he said.
She looked up, hope flickering in her eyes.
“Tim says you have my baby shoes.”
“I do,” she whispered.
