And I let you carry her.

All by yourself.

For seventeen years, I let a child carry his sister alone, because I was too much of a coward to help him.

I’m so sorry.

I’m so sorry, son.” And there it was, at last, spoken aloud in our kitchen: the confession of a man who had mistaken running from grief for surviving it, and who had, in the process, left his son to shoulder alone a weight that should have been shared by the whole family.

Chapter 18 — The Embrace