He said that was why Carla had pushed for the family dinner, and why he had allowed her to make it sound as though the boys were embarrassing him.

Nathan asked what had changed.

Brian said he had begun reading the old letters, then kept noticing places where he had made excuses: at work, at home, in conversations with his mother, even in the way he talked about the past to Julian.

The excuses had once protected his comfort.

Now they sounded ugly, even to him.

“I can’t give you a childhood back,” he told Nathan.

“I can answer what you ask without making your mother responsible for it.”