I remembered.
Daniel planted six bulbs. Then he sat back on his heels and looked at the stone for a long time.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” he said quietly. “I thought the worst of you for twelve years. You didn’t deserve that.”
He wiped his face with his sleeve.
“You were a pain in the neck with all your secrets,” he added. “But you were the best man I ever knew.”
I put my hand on my son’s shoulder.Study Anatomy
We stayed there until our coffee went cold.
It’s spring now.
The daffodils came up at the cemetery. Daniel sent me a picture. Six yellow flowers, in a little row beside the stone.
I’m eighty-one. I walk every morning without my cane, down Linwood Street and back, past the maple tree Robert planted. I have a new furnace and a stair lift I’ve used exactly twice, mostly to make my great-grandchildren laugh.
