I looked up at him through tears.
He was crying too.
“I love you, Dad,” I said.
The words surprised both of us.
His face folded.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
This time, when he hugged me, I let myself lean into it.
Not because the past had vanished.
Because I was tired of letting it stand between us with more power than love.
From the porch, Leo shouted, “Group picture!”
Everyone groaned, which only made him more determined.
He arranged us beneath the maple tree with serious artistic authority. Diane beside Paul. Daniel beside my mother. My father next to me. Leo in front, holding Noah’s sketchbook in one hand and the remote timer in the other.
“Everybody smile,” he ordered.
The camera blinked.
For one second, we all stood together.
Messy.
Unfinished.
Alive.
The picture captured my mother laughing through tears, my father looking at me instead of the camera, Daniel’s hand resting gently on his birth mother’s shoulder, Diane holding Paul’s arm, and Leo grinning with Noah’s dimple bright on his face.
