Chapter 17 — Forgive Me

When Andrew saw Daniel, he lowered his head, unable to hold his brother’s eyes.

“Forgive me,” he said, and his voice broke on it.

“I didn’t know how to come back.”

And Daniel wanted to hit him.

He was surprised by the force of it, the pure animal want.

He wanted to strike his brother for the six years of grief, for the empty coffin, for their mother who had died listening for a phone that never rang, for Maria left alone with a newborn, for a seven-year-old boy who had spent his whole life not knowing his own father’s face.

All of it rose in Daniel at once, years of it, and his hands closed.