Daniel looked around the crowded kitchen.
“At what point did you think the right moment was coming?”
Evelyn’s shoulders lowered.
It was not defeat.
It was recognition.
“I kept thinking I would know,” she said. “I thought one morning I would wake up and remember exactly how to fix everything.”
Silas picked at a loose corner of the paper on which he had drawn the houses.
“Maybe fixing things isn’t one morning.”
His grandmother looked at him.
“No,” she said. “Maybe it isn’t.”
Daniel read the last paragraph silently before turning the letter over.
On the back, Elena had written a phone number.
Beneath it were six words:
I will accept whatever you decide.
Daniel stared at the number.
“Call her,” Silas said.
His father looked up.
“Right now?”
“You told me we wouldn’t say later anymore.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“That doesn’t mean we rush into something before we understand it.”
