He had been quiet that evening.
When I asked what he was thinking about, he had said, “Nothing worth talking about.”
I had believed him.
Now I wondered how many times in his life people had accepted that answer because it was easier.
Robert continued.
“When Logan was seventeen, we had an argument. I don’t even remember what started it. College, perhaps. Or his mother. He accused me of arriving too late to be his father.”
Robert’s eyes drifted toward the window.
“And I said something I have regretted every day since.”
“What?”
“I told him that if he had already decided I had no place in his life, then perhaps I should stop trying to force one.”
The words didn’t sound cruel.
But I understood immediately why they had mattered.
To a grieving seventeen-year-old, they could have sounded like surrender.
“He left?”
“Not that night. But emotionally? Yes.”
