“It’s not the whole answer.”

Our conversation did not repair everything.

He did not apologize that day.

But I had finally spoken to him as an adult who no longer needed to win his approval by repeating his choices.

PART 19

Summer brought a challenge that couldn’t be solved by lawyers or schedules.

Elias came down with a respiratory infection and needed a few days of close monitoring at home.

It was not the frightening emergency his premature birth might have suggested, but he was miserable, feverish, and uninterested in his usual games.