Dear Dad, today I can ride without training wheels.

Nathan fell but he’s okay.

Maybe you can come next time.

Love, Zach.

Beneath it was the original envelope, addressed in my handwriting, with a postal stamp and a red RETURN TO SENDER mark.

Brian read the next folded sheet.

Nathan had drawn a stick figure standing under a bright yellow sun beside two smaller figures holding soccer balls.

At the bottom I had written the words he dictated: We saved you a seat.

There was another letter from their ninth birthday.

Another from their first robotics competition.

The last, written only two weeks before, contained a single paragraph in Zachary’s careful script.

We don’t need you to pretend you came to see us.

We just want to know why you never came at all.

Brian swallowed.