Gwen raised her chin.
“Exactly.”
I faced her again.
“That was my failure. The next 40 years were your choice.”
Aria placed Sarah’s records on the table.
“Did Dad ever say he was leaving us?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did you learn that he was searching?”
Gwen lowered her eyes.
“Eventually.”
Shaun rested his arm on the table, the old watch visible on his wrist.
“You let us hate him.”
“I thought the truth would destroy you.”
“You’d already taught us who to blame,” he said.
I played Clara’s recording.
When it ended, no one spoke in Gwen’s defense.
I picked up the recorder.
“You don’t get to decide what Clara believed anymore. You don’t get to speak for my children. You don’t get to call control love.”
The next morning, Aria and Shaun met me at the bridge.
I untied the faded ribbon I had replaced every year.
“This was where I came to mourn you,” I said.
Shaun touched the watch on his wrist.
“What happens now?”
“Now I stop grieving people who are standing beside me.”
Back at the house, Aria ran her fingers over the stitches in the mattress.
“I thought that seam ruined us.”
“No. Adults did that.”
Shaun lifted one end of the mattress.
“Then let’s get rid of it.”
Inside, I opened Aria’s dollhouse.
Its front door still hung crooked.
I reached for my screwdriver.
Aria stopped me.
“It doesn’t have to be fixed tonight, Dad.”
Shaun picked up the other screwdriver.
“And you don’t have to fix it alone.”
For forty years, I had waited for the children I believed I’d lost.
Aria and Shaun came back carrying anger, guilt, and four decades of stolen time.
I looked at both of them, then set the screwdriver down.
This time, we would rebuild together.
