Instead, I said, “I wanted you to see your father as your father, not as someone I was fighting with.”
Parker thought about that.
“Can someone be good and still do something wrong?”
I brushed the rain from his hair.
“Yes. Most people are more complicated than one mistake.”
The Call That Night
After the boys went to sleep, I sat at the kitchen table with the court papers spread before me.
The house was quiet except for the soft hum of the refrigerator.
My phone rang.
Gavin.
I answered after the third ring.
“Cassandra.”
His voice sounded tired.
“Yes?”
“I never thought you would use those documents.”
“I never thought you would tell our sons I abandoned them.”
He was silent.
Then he said, “I panicked.”
“About losing what?”
“Everything.”
I looked around the kitchen.
Nolan’s homework sat beside a bowl of apples. Parker’s shoes were near the back door. Their ordinary belongings reminded me that the most important parts of my life had never been listed on a financial statement.
