I turned to him.
“One dinner?” I repeated.
His jaw tightened.
“One dinner is when Emma was seven and Grandma’s locket went missing, and you let your daughter blame her until Emma cried so hard she got sick. One dinner is when Lucas made a card for Dad’s birthday and you told him homemade gifts were what people gave when they had nothing else. One dinner is when Mom told my children not to take too many strawberries because your kids liked them better.”
My mother’s eyes filled. “I never meant—”
“You meant all of it,” I said. “You just never meant for me to remember.”
My father finally spoke.
“This is my house.”
Thomas Reed made a sound that was almost a laugh.
My father turned on him. “You stay out of this.”
“I stayed out of it for eighteen years,” Thomas said. “That was my mistake.”
