He began attending a community center twice a week.
He made new friends.
He even started teaching a neighbor how to grow tomatoes.
But some evenings, I still noticed him checking the locks twice.
Healing wasn’t as simple as closing a case.
The Letter My Mother Left Behind
One October afternoon, I visited Dad after work.
The trees around his house had turned red and gold.
He was sitting on the porch with two cups of coffee.
“Sit down, sweetheart. There’s something I want to show you.”
He handed me an envelope.
My name was written across the front in my mother’s handwriting.
Dad explained that he had found it in a safe-deposit box while organizing their old papers.
Inside was a letter Mom had written years before her death.
