We didn’t turn the evening into a trial.

We simply allowed one difficult story to sit beside the funny ones.

That felt more respectful than pretending he had been an ideal father or deciding he had never done anything good.

After dinner I brought out the old acoustic guitar.

I played the song I’d written from Mom’s notebook, then the new one about the late-night diner.

Everyone joined in on the chorus even though they’d never heard it before.