“I handled you badly.”
That was different.
“You did.”
“I thought if I kept the business separate from you, I could keep you separate from the business.”
“You did the opposite.”
“I know.”
He pulled the chair back but remained standing.
“I wanted you to come home.”
“Then why tell me to leave?”
“Because I thought choosing the Army meant you rejected me.”
“I chose the Army.”
I looked directly at him.
“You chose what that meant.”
Arthur nodded.
“I did.”
No argument.
No correction.
No attempt to tell me what I had really felt twenty-six years earlier.