Lily shook her head. “Grandma fixed all my mistakes.”

“I adjusted them,” I corrected. “Mistakes are usually part of learning.”

Daniel looked at me. We both remembered how our family had hidden mistakes until they grew into disasters. He sat down. “I found something.” He set an envelope on the counter.

Inside was the note I’d left when I moved out of my Oak Park house three years earlier, kept in an old company folder. Thank you for making room for me.

I hope living together gives us back some of the time grief took away. My handwriting looked painfully hopeful.

“You did make room for me,” I said. “Then you let someone else decide I no longer deserved it.”