That fall, Michael and I visited our mother’s grave. He stood in front of her headstone a long time before finally saying, “I thought she’d hate me.” “She would’ve been angry,” I told him. “She also would have wanted you home.” He cried, and this time I put my hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t forgiveness. But it was closer.
The following spring, I hosted another Sunday dinner. Same pot roast, same good dishes. Tyler and Noah both came. Michael sat across from me. At some point I looked around that table and thought back to the first Sunday — how I’d cleaned the house because my son was bringing someone important home, how I’d worried about whether dinner would be good enough. Then a stranger had walked through my door wearing a necklace I hadn’t seen in twenty-one years, and I locked him in my basement because I thought a stranger had stolen something from the brother I’d lost.
