garage wall and demanded its history.
Nathan scratched his jaw. “Your dad threw a tennis ball in here after I told him not to.”
“Daddy was bad?” Owen asked, thrilled.
“He was human,” Nathan said. “And I was mad for about six minutes. Then he fixed it badly, and I was mad again.”
“Where is the bad fixing?”
Nathan pointed to a patch of uneven paint.
Owen touched it with awe. “Daddy made that?”
“Yep.”
Owen looked at the wall like it was a museum exhibit.
The children were not simply meeting Nathan.
They were meeting their father through him.
That mattered.
I saw it, and though it hurt, it also steadied me.
My visits continued too, though they changed. Sometimes I met them at the agency. Sometimes Dr. Patel included me in therapy sessions when the children asked. Once, with permission from everyone, we met at a park.
It
