But I sat on the edge of his bed in the dark and thought about the woman in the cold house and the man in the motel with a stolen ring, both of them locked away now behind doors that would not open for a very long time, and I thought: yes.

For the first time in my life, the monster is gone.

And my father is home.

And my son will never know a house like the one I grew up in, because I walked into that yard, and I opened that door, and I did not close it.

We were three people in the light, and we were a family, and it was the first real one I had ever had.

THE END.