One waiting for tomorrow.
My phone remained facedown.
No final answer from Mercer.
No message from Arthur.
No invitation to dinner.
No new family emergency.
For years, I had imagined reconciliation as some enormous act.
Arthur calling me daughter.
Me calling him Dad.
A family photograph restored to a mantel.
Everybody finally agreeing on what happened.
That was not where we were.
Arthur had said he was wrong.
I had told him not to ask me to call him Dad.
He had respected that.
Trevor had chosen not to repeat Arthur’s version of the past.
Evelyn had stopped helping him hide the photograph.
Those were small changes.