“Starting over would mean pretending the porch never happened. And it happened. It happened to those three kids.” I let that land.

“But we could start from here. Slowly. With real boundaries. And with the children’s comfort ahead of anybody’s need to be forgiven — including mine.”

My father nodded. “Tell us what the boundaries are, and we’ll follow them.”

So I told them. No unannounced visits, ever. No conversations, from anyone, about me going back to Grant.

No holiday invitations designed to patch up appearances for other people’s benefit.

Trevor did not get to be around the children until he could explain to me why their homelessness had been funny to him.