I remained silent.
“I hadn’t gone since the funeral.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you say to him?”
Austin exhaled.
“I told him I was sorry.”
I stared across the ocean.
“Sorry for what?”
“For treating you like you were supposed to keep taking care of me.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
The sentence I had waited forty years to hear.
Strangely, I no longer needed it.
“I hope you meant it,” I said.
“I do.”
“And Chloe?”
“She understands now.”
I almost smiled.
“Does she?”
“She does.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then Austin whispered,
“Are you coming home?”
I looked around the cabin.
My suitcase.
The little vase of flowers I had bought that morning.
Ernest’s photograph beside the window.
“No.”
Austin went quiet.
“I mean… not yet.”
“Mom—”
“I love you, Austin.”
