“I’m not taking responsibility for your choices. I’m taking responsibility for mine.”
He nodded slowly.
“That’s something I learned inside,” he said. “Two things can be true at the same time. I can understand why I became desperate and still accept that what I did was wrong.”
“That sounds like progress.”
“I hope it is.”
We drove another mile before he spoke again.
“Do you think we can rebuild what we lost?”
I considered the question carefully.
“I think we can build something.”
“Not what we had?”
“What we had is gone, Michael. Trust doesn’t return simply because we want it to. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be something new.”
He looked down at his hands.
“One step at a time?”
“One step at a time.”
He nodded.
“One step at a time.”
The land was still mine.
I had protected it. The garden, oak tree, barn, porch, and house remained exactly where Margaret and I had left them.
