“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because he knew you.”
“Do you think he’d forgive me?”
I looked toward the porch light.
“He forgave you before you even walked out the door.”
Michael entered with mugs of tea.
“Of course he did. Thomas would forgive someone for stealing his car if they brought it back with a sincere apology and a full tank.”
Susan laughed.
It was the first real laugh I’d heard from her all day.
One Last Light
Three days later, we returned to Thomas’s grave.
This time, there was no rain.
Susan knelt first and rested her hand against his name.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Dad.”
I had brought a small battery-powered lantern.
I placed it beside his headstone and switched it on.
Warm golden light appeared.
The porch light.
Susan broke down again.
One by one, we knelt beside her.
And there, around Thomas’s grave, I finally understood what he had been teaching us all our lives.
