Trust did not come back all at once.
Micah had to keep proving, week after week, with a wrench in his hand and his truck in the driveway every Sunday, that the man who’d chosen not to know was gone.
Joanne built a new life far from Gideon and mailed back every document she ever found.
Wendell learned, late in life, to say when something hurt instead of swallowing it behind his pride.
And Deborah slowly stopped making excuses for her children out of the fear that the truth might cost her their love.
Ezra learned the lesson the letters had taught him at such a price: that loving your family is not the comfortable act of assuming everyone is fine.