always believed the same was true in reverse.
There was exactly one subject she wouldn’t touch: her father, a man she hadn’t spoken to in over a decade, whose name alone could end a conversation.
“You okay?” I’d asked once, after she stared at an unfamiliar number on her phone for a full minute before declining the call.
“Please don’t ask me about him,” she said, sliding the phone into her pocket.
I never asked again.
Then her father had a bad fall that fractured his hip, needed surgery, and landed in an extended rehab facility two towns over. Suddenly Renee’s car had a rehab center parking pass tucked into the visor.
“Another session today?” I asked one Saturday morning as she reached for her keys.
“They want him doing the exercises three times a week if he wants to walk without a cane again.” She squeezed my hand on
her way past. Watching her father nearly lose his mobility had clearly cracked something open in her that I didn’t fully understand yet, but I was grateful to see her softening toward him at all.
That afternoon, she stood by the front door with Toby, our eight-year-old.
“Grandpa’s been asking about him,” Renee said. “I thought Toby could come cheer him up a little.”
Toby held up a drawing of a fire truck. “I made this for him.”
I kissed the top of Toby’s head, then Renee’s cheek. “Drive safe.”
“We won’t be too late,” she said, catching the door before it shut, flashing me a smile I’d trusted for eleven years of marriage without ever once questioning it.
I didn’t know yet that I’d spend the rest of that night wishing I hadn’t.
***
Around eight-thirty, my phone lit up. My cousin, Desmond.
“Am I losing it, or is this
